Ms. Ecclesiastes currently serves as Chief Executive & Equity Officer of Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, a community development organization which celebrates the people, places, and philosophies of the African Diaspora.  As a community leader Asali holds the wisdom of Zimbabwean author Matshona Dhliwayo who proclaims, “To help people takes strength, to inspire people takes wisdom, to rule over them takes virtue, but to elevate them takes love. The real power of a leader is in the number of minds she can reach, hearts she can touch, souls she can move, and lives she can change.”

Prior to joining Ashé, Ms. Ecclesiastes served as Director of Strategic Neighborhood Development for the New Orleans Business Alliance, worked as Congo Square Coordinator for N.O. Jazz & Heritage Festival, Artist Relations Director and Empowerment Seminars Author for Essence Music Festival, and Executive Producer of Tremé 200 Festival, N.O. Juneteenth Festival, Tremé/7^th Ward Arts & Culture Festival, and Akoben Words-In-Action Festival.   She has taught in New Orleans public schools, universities, and prisons, and continues to utilize her spoken and written word as a platform for societal change through art and social justice for all humanity.  Asali has toured nationally with the critically acclaimed, “Swimming Upstream”, a play she co-wrote with a cohort of extraordinary NOLA women, exploring life in New Orleans following the post-Katrina flood and produced by author of the Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler.

Ms. Ecclesiastes is a graduate of McMain Magnet High School and Vanderbilt University, where she earned Bachelors of Science in English Literature and Secondary Education, with minors in Biology and African Diaspora Studies—a program she co-founded at the university with her sisters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

The author of two TED Talks and chosen as one of the 300 most influential citizens for the City’s Tricentennial, Ms. Ecclesiastes counts among her honors President Obama’s 2012 Drum Major for Service Award, the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Council’s 2013 Queen’s Scribe Award, and Essence Magazine’s 2018 Excellence in Service Award.