When Allison Hotard talks about leadership, she doesn’t do it from behind a podium or with a stack of management books at her side. Her story starts somewhere far more grounded—in Vacherie, the small river parish town where she grew up, went to school, and first learned the value of community.
“I went to E.D. White in Thibodaux,” she says, “and then I came to the University of New Orleans to study hotel, restaurant and tourism.”
Like a lot of young people arriving in New Orleans, she wasn’t sure yet what her place in the city would be. But she felt pulled toward it.
Her path into leadership wasn’t linear. The inspiration began in high school, where she worked as a tour guide at Oak Alley Plantation. She remembers meeting a travel writer and immediately being captivated.
“I was like, oh my god, that’s such a cool job,” she says. “She told me to look up colleges that have a hotel, restaurant and tourism degree. And so that’s what I did.” Hotard laughs about it now. “I just did what that woman told me to do.”
She enrolled at UNO in 2001, but Hurricane Katrina disrupted everything. She was supposed to graduate in 2005, but instead found herself shuttling between campuses. “I was supposed to finish up that year at UNO,” she says, “so I took some classes at Nicholls and then went back the following year.”
She ultimately graduated with the HRT degree but—ironically—never entered the hospitality industry.
Instead, her career became rooted in higher education and nonprofit development. She began working in UNO’s alumni relations department, handling fundraising events before moving to Loyola, where she spent a decade building alumni engagement and supporting fundraising efforts across different departments. Following that, she launched her own consulting business — right before the pandemic hit.
After COVID, she joined GNO, Inc. One of her jobs was actually to find people to profile for this very magazine.
“It used to be my job to find people for Region,” Hotard says. She laughs at the symmetry. “A full-circle moment.” And then, two years ago, she stepped into the role she holds today: Executive Director of the Young Leadership Council (YLC).
The YLC, founded in 1986, has shaped New Orleans in ways most residents don’t realize—from launching the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, to helping light the Crescent City Connection, to producing large-scale public art projects and founding Youth Run NOLA. Its mission today remains rooted in the same idea: developing and retaining young leaders through community-driven projects.
For Hotard, that mission speaks directly to her own relationship with the city and the young professionals who call it home.
“We are a nonprofit that teaches leadership and retains leaders through community projects,” she explains, carefully noting the newly updated mission statement. YLC is best known for Wednesdays at the Square, the free weeknight spring concert series in Lafayette Square. But most people don’t realize the production is entirely volunteer-led.
“They plan the budget, they get the sponsors, they pick the music — they do it all,” she says. “It’s all run through volunteer leadership.”
That volunteer ethos is embedded across all YLC programming. The organization’s Leadership Development Series, created in 2003, remains a flagship project—a ten-week course where participants learn about New Orleans through direct engagement with civic and industry leaders.
“They have different topics on New Orleans,” Hotard says. “They get to meet leaders in the city who help them figure out where young professionals can be placed… how they can get involved.”
Another program, Power Ties, brings volunteers into middle schools to teach eighth graders about career opportunities, culminating in mock interviews and resume development. “We help them see what skills they have that could be utilized to help them gain employment as teenagers,” Hotard says.
Next year marks YLC’s 40th anniversary—a milestone that Hotard plans to use not just for celebration, but reflection. She’s organizing a call to alumni and developing new programming, including a boot camp class that will invite recent graduates of the Leadership Development Series to propose what YLC’s next major initiative should be.
Her focus now is on shaping the organization’s future by listening directly to the people it serves.
“The organization lives and thrives by the collective of young professionals,” she says. To that end, YLC has begun implementing surveys and planning focus groups to understand what this next generation wants, needs, and envisions. It’s a shift toward deeper engagement, one she sees as essential to staying relevant and responsive.
Two years into the job, she says she feels grateful. “I feel very blessed to continue to work with the young professionals in the city of New Orleans,” she says, “to help guide them in getting involved in the community and also use this as an opportunity to help connect them so we can retain them.”
Her message to young professionals is simple: be part of it. “Please get involved with the Young Leadership Council,” she says. “We’re here to connect them with other young professionals. We’re here to help connect them with the city of New Orleans.”
Hotard knows firsthand how a single connection—say, a conversation at Oak Alley—can shape a life. Now, she helps shape those moments for others.
And she’s just getting started.
