Layla Alanazi earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Virginia
Commonwealth University-L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. She
holds two MSc degrees in Global Human Resources Management from the University of
Liverpool in U.K. and MSc in Industrial Relations from West Virginia University in U.S. She
received her BA in English Language from Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in
Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
During her PhD journey at the Wilder School, she worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant with
different faculty who have different research interests, such as HR, criminal justice, and public
administration. She earned many distinctions, including but not limited to, Wilder School
Assistantship, King Abdullah M.S. and PhD Scholarships, Wilder School Best Doctoral Student
Award, and Best Paper Award at the NECOPA 2019 conference. Right after her graduation, she
worked as an adjunct faculty at the Political Science Department at Virginia Commonwealth
University.
She is a quantitative PA scholar. Her research interests include humanistic management, public
management, performance management, OB, Public Service Motivation, mediation analysis,
Human Resources Management, and others. Her Ph.D. dissertation examined the effects of
performance-cash rewards on performance using a mediation model and a mediating variable
which is Public Service Motivation (PSM). Her recent research papers focused on answering the
questions of how to make public organizations more effective and resilient using the principles
of Humanistic Management. Also, how to theorize HM in concrete and operational terms. Her
research has been published in leading academic journals, such as the International Journal of
Public Administration, and Public Integrity.
In 2023, Dr. Alanazi founded her own Consulting and Training agency “EVMC” In Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia. Her goal is to provide solutions to different HR issues and design HR training
tailored to the needs of different SMEs for Saudi and International Firms. Her ambitions were to
help assist her country leaders to achieve the 2030 vision, reform HR policies in all sectors when
needed, and improve the performance of some philanthropic organizations in Saudi Arabia to the
highest levels possible by donating part of the proceeds of her Center to organizations in need.
Prior to travelling to the United States, she worked in several departments in Saudi Aramco. The
last position she held was Contract Representative for mega projects contracts. In her spare time,
Dr. Alanazi loves arts of all kinds and finds joy and happiness in visiting museums and historical
and cultural tourist places around the world