BATON ROUGE — East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sid Edwards was among a group of mayors from 45 cities across the world who completed the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership initiative this week. 

This week, Edwards finished the final class of the program, which featured mayors from 16 countries, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

"This was an opportunity of a lifetime to be part of the Harvard Business School and its vast expertise. As a newly elected mayor, I found this program to be extremely helpful as I joined mayors from across the United States and 16 countries to share ideas, discuss issues, and explore solutions," Edwards said.

The program, created in 2017, helps mayors examine a variety of issues that their cities face, with each mayor identifying one issue to focus and find solutions for. Keeping with his campaign and administration's key goals, Edwards' program focused on combatting blight. 

Most recently, Edwards and his office announced $6 million in federal grant funding for initiatives that aim to address blight and stimulate home ownership across East Baton Rouge Parish.

Edwards applied to participate in the program when he took office in January 2025, before being accepted in July 2025. The program also included training for top mayoral assistants, including Christel Slaughter, William Daniel, Kelly LeDuff, Lon Vicknair and Rachel Lambert.

Mayors from Oakland, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Sacramento, California; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Athens, Greece, also graduated from the program.