Now consulting and functioning as the CEO of EM Plus 3, LLC. Dr. Mangum is focused on organizational redesign, leadership training, efficiency and effectiveness analysis, process improvement, budgeting, revenue enhancement, and planning in higher education. She is also a professional coach and mentor to aspiring leaders. She has worked with federal and state governments in the legislative process, private fund raising, and leveraged information technology. Mangum has built diverse teams and managed them through complete financial overhauls and recovery from financial downturns, creation and redesign of information and administrative systems, designed all funds financial models, and created budget planning and management information and reporting systems.
Mangum has led seminars, forums, and training on leadership, budget and financial planning for chief diversity officers, aspiring leaders in higher education, boards of trustees, and more recently served on local, state and national advisory boards including the Town of Carrboro Planning Board, the Orange County Water and Sewer Authority, the Public School Foundation of Chapel Hill Carrboro, Black Women College Presidents and Chancellors, the U.S. Agriculture Advisory Committee for Trade, the American Council of University Educators (ACUE) and the Boston University Symposium on 400 Years of Inequality: Breaking the Cycle of Systemic Racism. During the early years she also served as the first African American congressional intern for the State of North Carolina. She holds degrees from North Carolina Central University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University at Buffalo (SUNY).
As the eleventh university CEO, she made history as the first permanent female president of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU). Mangum is a change agent, planner, and leader that has served at the executive level of nationally recognized organizations of higher learning. While on faculty at FAMU she completed a sabbatical with Washington University in St. Louis as a distinguished scholar in residence and with the University of Pennsylvania. She remains committed to diversity, putting students first, and the principle of education as a human right. She also works to provide more efficient delivery systems using enterprise strategic planning. Prior to her appointment at FAMU, Mangum served as vice president for planning and budget at Cornell University, as senior associate provost at the University of North Carolina (UNC) - Chapel Hill, vice provost at the University at Buffalo (UB), and operations specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Madison, Geological and Natural History Survey. She also held faculty appointments at Cornell's Johnson School of Management, the UNC - Chapel Hill School of Government, the UB Graduate School of Education, and is a member of Zeta Phi Beta, Incorporated. During her career, she completed professional development programs at the American Council of Education, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cornell Administrative Management Institute, the Millennium Leadership Institute of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the State of Florida Leadership Program.
Among the many honors and recognitions Elmira received a Women of Distinction Global Leadership Award in Education from the organization Celebrating Women International, named to EBONY magazine’s “Power 100” list and HBCU President of the Year. She received awards and recognitions from Cornell University, the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, the University of Buffalo, the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), the United Way, the Tallahassee Oasis Center for Women & Girls, and was inducted into the Tallahassee Urban League Hall of Fame.
