Interim President & CEO

At Harvard University, Lydie was working on a project to scale up her schools by providing quality early education and creating educational programs accessible to all. She earned a Master’s Degree in Public Administration(MPA)from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Currently, Lydie is the Founder and CEO of Happy Hearts, a chain of preschools that are providing quality education to hundreds of children between the ages of 18 months and five years old in Rwanda. She is also the co-founder of Drakkar Ltd, a publishing house that serves more than 3,000 schools in Rwanda. In 2018, Lydie was appointed as a board member of the African Leadership University (ALU). In 2019, ALU wasnamed one of the most innovative companies in the world(#1 in Africa) by the influential magazine Fast Company.

Lydie also sits on the board of the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). Lydie Hakizimana is a recipient of numerous awards among others the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellowship in 2013 and the Mandela Washington Fellowship in 2016. Prior to this, Lydie worked for OTFGroup, a Boston based consulting firm founded by Michael Porter among others. At OTF, Lydie advised the government of Rwanda and Gabon in Information Communication Technologies, the Hides and Skin, and Timber industry respectively. Lydie is a certified Montessori teacher from the North American Montessori Center (NAMC)in Canada