The rare adviser who has actually held the seat

Dr. Nate Easley, Jr. has spent more than four decades inside American education, not studying it from a distance, but running it. He has sat where his clients sit: at the head of the boardroom table, in the superintendent's chair, and behind the desk of an organization responsible for tens of millions of dollars and thousands of students' futures.

His graduate and doctoral research focused on a question that would define his career: how does higher education actually support the academic success and college completion of Black and Latinx students? That question took him out of the classroom and into leadership, first at the local level, then state, national, and international.

“I've never wanted to be the person with the theory. I wanted to be the person who'd already done it, so when I sit across from a board or a superintendent, I know exactly what they're up against.”

As CEO of the Denver Scholarship Foundation, he led a $50 million organization built to inspire and empower Denver Public Schools students to reach and finish college. Under his leadership, the Foundation invested more than $30 million in 5,000 DPS graduates pursuing college.

Before that, Denver voters elected him to the Denver Public Schools Board of Education, where he served as President and Secretary, governing one of Colorado's largest school districts from the inside, not the sidelines. He has since been appointed to the Colorado State University System Board of Governors, first as Vice Chair and now as Chair, overseeing higher education strategy and governance for the entire CSU System.

He has started two nonprofit organizations from nothing and led four more, meaning when he advises a client on a nonprofit launch or a strategic partnership, he's not reciting a framework. He's telling you what he wishes someone had told him.

That record has put him in rooms most consultants only read about, including recognition alongside President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for his work advancing college access. Today, through Easley Found Solutions, he brings that same operator's instinct to school boards, superintendents, and nonprofit leaders who need less theory and more of what actually works.