CFK US ADVISORY BOARD

Winki La Force
Member, Advisory Board

Winkie moved to Chapel Hill in 1975. After raising two children she became director of Participant Services for the 1987 U.S. Olympic Festival, a project of the U.S. Olympic Committee.  She then moved to Atlanta for three years and served as a Director in the Sports Department for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. When she returned to the Triangle, she became President of the North Carolina Bid Committee-2007 Pan American Games where she coordinated the efforts of 800 volunteers from Raleigh, Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill in their attempt to be named U.S. Candidate City. The Triangle was runner up to San Antonio.

Winkie is currently Executive Director of Leadership Triangle.  In that role she develops programs and oversees fundraising of the leadership classes. She networks across the region's public, private and civic sectors and connects emerging and established leaders, people who are committed to understanding the many perspectives of these different communities, and encourages them to find common ground on which to address regional issues.

She currently serves as Chair of El Centro Latino, a non-profit that serves Latinos in and around Orange County, and is on the Orange County Economic Development Commission.

Winkie graduated from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, with a M.A. in Sport Administration and also a M.A. in Education.  She received her B.A., in Education, from the University of Florida, Gainesville, as a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.  She is a graduate of Leadership Triangle and Leadership America, North Carolina.

Her passions lie in Africa.  She has visited Africa five times and the most recent trip, summer 2006, did leadership training at Beacon of Hope in Kware slums of Nairobi. She has visited Carolina for Kibera each of three summers in Nairobi, and she and her two children had the honor of meeting Tabitha in the summer of 2003. Once again she visited CFK in the summer of 2006 and was amazed at its growth and how its programs have flourished. During each visit, Eurosports stocks her with many soccer balls and uniforms which she takes for the futbol program.

Winkie's daughter, Jennifer, lived in Nairobi for 2 years, working with refugees and now is an Asylum Officer for Homeland Security in San Francisco. Her son Kevin is an investment banker at Bear Stearns in New York City.