Gia Truong joins New Profit as Managing Partner of Equity and Proximity
February 16, 2023Respected education leader will bring fresh expertise and energy to propel the organization’s equity, diversity, and inclusion work
New Profit announced today that Gia Truong has joined the organization as its first Managing Partner of Equity and Proximity and a member of its Leadership Team. Gia comes to the role after a distinguished career as a teacher, school and district leader, and nonprofit executive in Northern California, Washington state, and nationally. Gia was most recently the Chief Executive Officer of Envision Education, a current New Profit grantee-partner that works to advance opportunity and access, particularly for first-generation college students, by preparing them for college, career, and life success.
“We feel joyful and energized that Gia decided to bring her incredible skills and talents to New Profit to advance our transformation around equity, diversity, and inclusion,” said New Profit Co-CEO Tulaine Montgomery. “She has spent her career in close proximity to students, parents, and educators who are most affected by systemic inequity in America, and as her time at our grantee-partner Envision Education shows, she brings that critical, proximate perspective to everything she does.”
Truong joins as New Profit continues to accelerate critical work internally and across its partner network that focuses on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and addressing the systemic injustices that have been laid bare by the pandemic and the movements that arose following the 2020 murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd.
As a priority in this work and based on original research released in 2020, New Profit has focused its investment and support on proximate social entrepreneurs and leaders who have deep lived experience and expertise with inequitable, interconnected systems like education, economic mobility, and democracy. These leaders often create powerful ideas for transforming these systems that remain underinvested in philanthropy and elsewhere. Today, 91% of New Profit’s grantee-partners are led by leaders of color, and last year alone, New Profit began funding and providing support to more than 55 new grantee-partners. This represents the largest expansion of investments in a single year in New Profit’s history.
In her new role, Truong will oversee and manage the integration and continued implementation of EDI practices and policies across New Profit. She will partner with Montgomery and other internal leaders to advance the integration of EDI work across three dimensions: internal team development and culture building, support for grantee-partners in the New Profit portfolio, and external field leadership including communications, convening, and capacity-building for our network.
“What brought me to New Profit is its stance on equity and proximity, in particular, the belief that we need to center the expertise, experience, and needs of those most impacted in order to transform inequitable systems. I’m excited to work in partnership with the New Profit community to co-create anti-racist and inclusive systems and culture where everyone thrives.”
During her time as CEO of Envision Education from 2014-2022, Truong helped grow the organization’s network of high-performing Envision Schools to five Bay Area sites, which now enroll 1,500 mostly first-generation college students annually. Under her leadership, Envision Schools maintained a rate of 99% acceptance to 2- or 4-year colleges, the latter of which increased from 64% to 91% during her tenure. She also helped grow Envision Learning Partners, a consulting and training division of Envision Education that seeks to help other schools and districts across the country utilize performance assessment to increase student outcomes.
Prior to leading Envision Education, Truong served in a variety of leadership roles and teaching positions in the Oakland Unified School District, including Executive Officer, Leadership, Curriculum, & Instruction and Network Executive Officer. She also served as Principal of the Urban Promise Academy in Oakland; Department Lead, Coach, and Teacher at Leadership High School in San Francisco; and Design Team Member and Founding 9th and 10th Grade Academy Teacher at Nathan Hale High School in Seattle.
Truong is proud to be a National Equity Project Leading For Equity Fellow, a leadership coach for Leadership forLiberation, a Pahara-Aspen fellow, and an Education Leaders of Color (EdLOC) member. From her direct work with communities, she has learned that to improve outcomes for and with historically marginalized communities: “leaders must be willing to do significant ‘mirror’ work and be ready to change,” said Truong. “Adults need to learn to collaborate productively across difference; and community wisdom and power must be prioritized and amplified.”