about me

Alex Edgar is the founder of AWE Strategies and a strategist helping institutions move beyond simply including young people to meaningfully sharing power with them.

My work focuses on reimagining how organizations share power across generations, building the trust, structures, and skills that allow every generation to lead together.

I bring experience across sectors—philanthropy, higher education, CSR, cultural institutions, non-profits, youth development, and civic engagement—helping leaders translate inclusion into lasting systems change. Through AWE Strategies, I advise foundations, nonprofits, and institutions on youth development, intergenerational governance, and philanthropic strategy. My passion is creating the conditions where young people are not just included but empowered to shape decisions, and where legacy leaders evolve to meet a new era of work, leadership, and public trust.

My Story

I grew up in Simi Valley, CA, learning to navigate two politically different worlds. In one, I led youth voter education and registration campaigns with local community groups. In the other, I helped expand the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s Student Leadership Program and became an Eagle Scout. These experiences taught me how to build relationships across partisan differences and showed me that meaningful change requires both strong community action and institutions willing to evolve.

Today, I run an independent practice helping institutions engage young people as experts in shaping our future. I serve on the boards of Points of Light and CoGenerate, am the SHRM Foundation's Losey Visiting Voice, and advise organizations ranging from the American Bar Association to Mars Inc. Whether I'm advising boards, shaping intergenerational governance models, designing national youth programs, or translating Gen Z insights for leaders, my work is about the same core mission: giving young people a real seat at the table and helping institutions become responsive to their needs.

When I arrived at UC Berkeley, I started building the spaces I wished had existed for me. I worked to elevate youth voices in civic life, created pathways for young people to lead inside institutions, and pushed for cultural change in places that weren't designed with us in mind. Over time, those efforts grew from campus organizing into national strategy work across foundations, federal agencies, and civic organizations.

My belief is simple: when you invest in young people as partners, not participants, everything gets better.

And I've spent my career proving that's possible.

Current Engagements

  • Lead cohort design and experience for a grantee cohort focused on youth wellbeing and technology, embedding youth co-design and leadership principles into the deployment of $2M in regional grantmaking.

  • Lead the “Next Gen Works” initiative, developing a definition of a next-gen-enabling workplace for the HR community to build a future of work that supports all Gen Z and Alpha talent. 

  • Serve as sole youth advisor to the $1B+ foundation, guiding a multi-year, eight-figure expansion of its youth development investment strategy at regional and national levels, with a focus on youth governance in WA. 

  • Youngest co-designer of $100M venture philanthropy’s biennial gathering, building a multi-day experience focused on building a more equitable future with social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and cross-sector leaders.

  • Youngest advisor at the largest association of legal professionals in the world, advising ABA staff on how to advance public understanding of law and its role in society, with a focus on engaging young adults.

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