Dr. Diana Pallais

Dr. Diana Pallais serves as the Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees.  In this capacity, she has championed the effort to ensure that Loyola’s curriculum and Jesuit formation are deeply connected with the changing demands that Loyola graduates will encounter as they enter the AI economy.  In Dr. Pallais’s previous roles at Microsoft and working with some of Microsoft’s most AI-forward customers, she gained a perspective on the changing skills and capabilities needed for success in the AI economy.  Many of the capabilities that are most valued in AI frontier firms are precisely those skills that a Jesuit, liberal arts education offer.   

Prior to serving on the Loyola Board of Trustees, Dr. Pallais’s career includes leadership roles in the corporate, non-profit and academic sectors.  At Microsoft, over a span of 23 years before retiring, she served in leadership positions in corporate strategy, product management, marketing, and business development, and she launched Microsoft’s suite of AI offerings.  A hallmark of her career at Microsoft was multi-disciplinary work built on the belief that it is possible to serve the public good from a private sector platform. She brought together resources and expertise that advanced societal goals and created shareholder value.  She drove public-private partnerships (PPP) and global development initiatives, resulting in over 100 PPPs globally that served underprivileged constituencies and public policy goals across the world, while also driving growth for Microsoft.  

As an NGO leader, Dr. Pallais worked across the public-private divide to deliver transformational results for her organization’s beneficiaries. As an academic at the University of Washington, she relished her role as an educator and researcher on economic development and international political economy.  

Underpinning this versatility across sectors is her own lived experience as an immigrant who came to the United States, finding a new home in New Orleans after fleeing a civil war in her native Nicaragua. Adaptability has therefore been the defining trait across her personal and professional journey.  

Dr. Pallais now lives in Seattle with her wife, Dr. Judy Aks. They have two college-aged children, Sebastián and Sofía.    

A proud Loyola alumna (Political Science, 1991), she holds a PhD in International Political Economy from the University of Washington.