Building Strategy with People, Not for Them: Welcoming Liz Bergeron to the National Equity Project
There is a pervasive myth in educational leadership that strategy is something designed in a quiet room by experts, packaged into a polished manual, and handed down to schools to execute. But anyone who has spent time on the ground knows the truth: strategies built in isolation almost always crack under the weight of real-world complexity. True systemic change cannot be mandated from above. It must be co-designed with the people who live within the system every day.
This belief, that the best strategies are built with people, not just for them, is what grounds our newest team member at the National Equity Project. We are thrilled to welcome Liz Bergeron (she/her) as our new Managing Director, PK12 Strategy & Impact.
Liz steps into this role with more than 20 years of experience spanning public schools, education nonprofits, higher education, and international education. Across all of these diverse spaces, her focus has remained singular and unwavering: building organizational strategies that are deeply rooted in the voices of the students and communities most impacted by systemic inequities.
From the Classroom to National Impact
Liz’s journey began in the place where the realities of educational practice hit the ground: the middle school classroom. Starting her career as a middle school math and science teacher, she learned early on that instruction only works if it honors the humanity, curiosity, assets, and lived experiences of the young people in the room. That foundational perspective as an educator still informs her work today, as she continues to anchor her leadership in the classroom by teaching graduate courses for educators at Northeastern University.
Before coming to NEP, Liz served as the Managing Director of Strategy and Research at the New Tech Network, where she guided a national network of more than 350 schools. In that role, she did the heavy, necessary work of bridging the gap between high-level organizational vision and on-the-ground implementation. She learned how to align evidence, organizational strategy, and continuous learning cycles, not as compliance metrics, but as tools to help school ecosystems grow adaptively and sustainably.
Her work is grounded in a deep commitment to bridging theory and practice, shaped by her perspective as Global Impact Research Manager at the International Baccalaureate Organization, where she partnered with schools nationally and internationally, and by her tenure as a faculty member in Educational Studies at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.
Merging Rigor with Relational Trust
With a Ph.D. from George Mason University and recognition as a recent Fellow through the Riley Institute’s Diversity Leaders Initiative at Furman University, Liz brings a rare combination of deep academic rigor and grassroots, relational commitment to our network.
A central focus of our work at the National Equity Project involves fostering the enabling conditions essential for systemic transformation. This process requires cultivating relational trust, establishing shared mental models, and creating intentional spaces for authentic community co-authorship to ensure that equity is an inherent part of every design. Liz’s experience aligning vision, and implementation with concrete evidence uniquely positions her to codevelop service designs, tools and resources that support system leaders to discern complex and limiting constraints within PK-12 systems in service of building the relationships, processes and structures for both adults and students to learn and thrive.
As our Managing Director of PK12 Strategy & Impact, Liz will be leading NEP’s direct services work with leaders and education systems into this next chapter of our history, helping expand our reach and impact with school systems and education organizations, and advancing our commitment to educational equity so every young person in every community has what they need to learn, develop, thrive, and contribute.As our Managing Director of PK12 Strategy & Impact, Liz will be leading NEP’s direct services work with leaders and education systems into this next chapter of our history, helping expand our reach and impact with school systems and education organizations, and advancing our commitment to educational equity so every young person in every community has what they need to learn, develop, thrive, and contribute.
Liz lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is officially stepping into our national community this month. We are incredibly grateful to have her mind, her heart, and her deep systemic expertise walking alongside us as we co-design a more just future for education.
Please join us in welcoming Liz to the team! You can connect with her directly at lbergeron@nationalequityproject.org.
