Nancy Gutiérrez

Dr. Nancy B. Gutiérrez is President & CEO of The Leadership Academy, a national education nonprofit that provides professional learning and coaching to K-12 education leaders, helping them to transform schools and accelerate learning for every student. Under Nancy’s guidance, The Leadership Academy has grown to support nearly 16,000 educators, building their capacity to create lasting change for 11.9 million students and counting. A proud daughter of East San José, California, Nancy began her career as a teacher and principal in her home community. There, she founded Renaissance Academy, a California Distinguished School that became the highest-performing school in the district. She also led the turnaround of the district’s lowest-performing middle school—a school that was just blocks from where she grew up and was the same school her mother had once attended. Her impact earned her recognition as California’s Middle Grades Principal of the Year. She later joined New York City Public Schools, leading a citywide initiative to retain high-performing principals and help them achieve superintendent certification. Nancy’s journey with The Leadership Academy began in 2014. Through executive-level roles where she expanded the nonprofit’s reach to include district and system leaders, she became known for her dynamic presence, masterful facilitation, and deep ability to coach and build the capacity of senior education leaders and teams. Named President & CEO in 2018, she’s overseen extraordinary progress and impact. Today, The Leadership Academy has partnered with education leaders across more than 450 school systems in 41 states and Washington, D.C. Nancy’s bold leadership has earned widespread recognition, and her honors include being named a 2025 ASU+GSV “Innovator of Color,” one of the “100 Most Influential Education Leaders in New York” by City & State, a “Rising Star” by the University of California, Davis, and a “Distinguished Alumna” by San José State University. She was also a 2019 Pahara Fellow. A frequent keynote speaker, Nancy is the co-author of two books: “Stay and Prevail” (2023), which highlights the impact leaders can have when they return to and invest in their home communities, and “Coaching Education Leaders” (2024), which shares The Leadership Academy’s groundbreaking coaching model. Her thought leadership has been featured in Education Week, Kappan, The74, and Hechinger Report among others.