Leigh-Ann Buchanan

Leigh-Ann Buchanan is the founding Executive Director of Venture Café Miami. In this role, she works to facilitate sustainable growth, increased diversity and inclusion, and greater connectivity within Miami’s innovation and startup community. Leigh-Ann previously served as legal counsel to entrepreneurs, startups and multinational corporations in a wide variety of complex business litigation matters and commercial disputes. She shifted her career from law to focus on supporting innovation, a process which she believes has the power to make meaningful, positive change in the world. Leigh-Ann is the founder of the Nyah Project, a program which develops diverse youth leaders through transformative experiences abroad focused on social entrepreneurship and innovative community building. She is among a collective of professional women who established Get Linked Miami, a youth hackathon and workshop series that engages diverse youth in STEM career education and coding training. She also sits on the executive boards of New Leaders Council Miami, Friends of the New World Symphony and chairs the American Bar Association’s Coalition on Racial & Ethnic Justice. Leigh-Ann holds a J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law and a B.A. in International Affairs from Bethune Cookman University.