Aim to Empower Today
Advancing Women's Leadership Through Strategy, Mentorship, and Action
Why Women's Leadership Matters
Organizations with strong women's leadership outperform their peers. Yet women still hold only 28% of C-suite positions and face unique barriers to advancement—from lack of sponsorship to workplace cultures that weren't designed with them in mind.
The solution isn't just 'lean in' advice for individual women. It's systemic: organizations that intentionally design for women's advancement, coupled with communities where women actively support each other's rise.
That's where Legacy Lab comes in.
Discover Legacy Lab, Inc.
Our Mission
Legacy Lab exists at the intersection of strategic consulting and community building. We believe that women's leadership isn't just about individual advancement—it's about creating ecosystems where women actively uplift one another across generations and industries.
Founded by award-winning executive strategist M'Balu "Lu" Bangura, Legacy Lab partners with organizations to design women's leadership strategies that work, while cultivating The Glass Collective—a dynamic community where emerging and established women leaders break the patterns of competition and isolation that hold women back.
Strategic Consulting
Leadership Advisory
Legacy Lab partners with executives, boards, and organizations to build sustainable strategies for advancing women in leadership. Led by M'Balu "Lu" Bangura, an award-winning C-suite executive and strategist and Shavey Chance, an accomplished HR executive, we bring expertise across organizational development, culture transformation, and strategic planning, our distinctive strength is in advancing women in leadership. This specialization allows us to deliver nuanced, research-backed strategies that create measurable change for women—and stronger organizations overall.
Women's Leadership Development
Organizational Culture Transformation
Strategic Planning & Change Management
Whether you're addressing retention challenges among women leaders, building your first formal women's leadership program, or strengthening the pipeline from entry-level to C-suite, Legacy Lab delivers actionable roadmaps and strategic insight designed for measurable, sustainable impact.
Training & Workshops
Our training equips leaders and teams with the skills to create environments where women don't just survive—they thrive and advance.
Offerings:
Women's Leadership Development Programs
Trauma-Informed Leadership
Sponsorship & Mentorship Training
Inclusive Leadership for Managers
Unconscious Bias & Equity Workshops
Organizational Culture Workshops
Our trainings are practical, evidence-based, and immediately applicable—designed to shift behavior, not just awareness.
The Glass Collective by Legacy Lab, Inc.
Inspired by founder Lu Bangura's forthcoming book The Glass Collective (Bloomsbury, 2027), this flagship initiative tackles a reality too many women face: the absence of genuine mentorship and the presence of competition where collaboration should exist.
The Glass Collective is an intergenerational community of women leaders—from emerging professionals building their legacy to established executives opening doors—who commit to a different way forward.
What Makes Us Different:
- Cross-generational mentorship: Intentional pairing of emerging and established leaders
- Cross-industry connection: A hairstylist and a lawyer have more to teach each other than you'd think
- Real resource sharing: Not just networking—actual doors opened, real advice given, tangible support offered
- Action-oriented: Every gathering fuels the Legacy Catalyst Fund, providing financial resources to women taking their next bold step
This isn't another networking group. It's a movement to rewrite how women show up for each other in leadership.
About Us
M’Balu “Lu” Bangura, SPHR, PMP is an award-winning C-suite executive, strategist, speaker, and equity architect whose work has earned local, national, and international recognition. She’s been named one of the Top 100 Human Rights Defenders by the International Human Rights Commission, a YP Honors Awardee by the National Urban League, a Top 25 Woman to Watch by The Baltimore Sun, and a 40 Under 40 honoree by The Daily Record, the Baltimore Business Journal and Black Enterprise Magazine.
Lu has built transformative programs across libraries, nonprofits, and civic spaces—centering healing, leadership, and legacy-building for underserved communities. Her consulting and speaking engagements have taken her from Maryland to Scotland, where she’s shared her frameworks for equity and empowerment on global stages.
With a track record of building movements that center equity, care, and legacy, Lu brings both strategic rigor and deep empathy to every space she enters.
Shavey Chance, MSHRM, SHRM-CP is an HR strategist and leadership advisor with experience supporting employee relations, workplace investigations, conflict resolution, and organizational risk management across public and nonprofit organizations. With a background in education as a former teacher, she brings strong training and facilitation expertise to her work, helping leaders strengthen accountability, navigate complex people dynamics, and build effective, compliant workplace cultures. Her practice is grounded in deep knowledge of federal, state, and local employment law, enabling organizations to implement people systems that are both legally sound and operationally strong.