Daniella Ballou-Aares

Daniella Ballou-Aares has spent her career at the intersection of business strategy and democratic governance, working from the conviction that American competitiveness depends on both.

As CEO of the Leadership Now Project, she leads a membership organization of more than 400 business leaders, including CEOs, board members, and executives, who understand that protecting constitutional institutions is not only a civic duty but a business imperative. When the rule of law is undermined and institutional credibility erodes, markets suffer, planning becomes difficult, and American competitiveness declines. Leadership Now is not a political organization; it is a business organization applying corporate governance principles to constitutional challenges, on the premise that the same discipline that guides the boardroom (fiduciary duty, accountability, transparency) should guide the country’s democratic institutions.

Daniella began her career at Bain & Company. She then co-founded Dalberg, growing it from seven people into a global advisory firm with more than 25 offices across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. She later worked on international development at the U.S. State Department, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and global health programs. That combination of private-sector and public-sector experience is the foundation of her view that business leaders have a distinctive standing to defend democratic norms, because a functioning democracy is the basis of predictable markets.

Her work has appeared in Harvard Business Review and Fast Company. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She holds an MBA and an MPA from Harvard and a B.S. from Cornell.

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