Mayor Stoney Appoints Senior Policy Advisor

Mayor Levar M. Stoney today is pleased to announce that community advocate and educator Osita Iroegbu is joining the administration as a Senior Policy Advisor. A Richmond native who currently lives in South Richmond, Iroegbu will be responsible for advancing the mayor’s priorities in community engagement, diversity and inclusion.

“I’m excited to have Osita join our team,” said Mayor Stoney. “Her years of experience and engagement in the Richmond community as an educator, journalist and advocate for social justice make her the right person for the important job of helping everyone in our city share in the vision of One Richmond.”

The mayor’s new advisor welcomes the challenge. “I’m eager to work with Mayor Stoney and his team to achieve greater progress for residents in every part of my hometown,” said Iroegbu, who grew up in Richmond’s Hillside public housing neighborhood. “I look forward to engaging our diverse communities and helping to ensure their voices are included in policy efforts as we collectively work to move our city forward.”

A first generation Nigerian-American, Iroegbu was named as a 2017 Governor’s Fellow in the Virginia Children’s Cabinet and a 2017 Initiatives of Change/Hope in the Cities Community Trustbuilding Fellow.

She is a former reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, where she covered education, government and public safety and focused on underserved communities in the Greater Richmond region. She also served as an instructor and assistant director of university relations at Virginia State University, and managed public relations at the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority from 2010 to 2014. 

Iroegbu is currently a member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia’s Next Generation Steering Committee, which works to mobilize and support young social justice activists and emerging community leaders within the Commonwealth, and is part of Initiatives of Change’s facilitator cohort designed to support the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation effort aimed at fostering narrative change and relationship building for sustained racial equity in Richmond.


She is founder of the Little Princesses Mentoring Program, which links young girls in at-risk communities with positive college mentors and enrichment experiences in higher education, and co-founder of the African Community Network of Greater Richmond, a non-profit organization aimed at providing, resources and advocacy to local African immigrant families and building multicultural unity.


Iroegbu earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English from the University of Delaware and a Master’s Degree in Journalism and Public Affairs from American University. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Media Art and Text doctoral program.