Biography

One of the most powerful leadership lessons that Nicole learned during her training as a school
leader came from Harvard professor, Ronald Heifetz, who states “there is no such thing as a
broken system… each system is perfectly aligned to produce the results it currently gets.” When
viewing her own educational journey and those of the people she loved around her, she realized
that the high levels of poverty and low levels of graduation and employment rates saw within
her community were not the result of some happenstance, but the byproduct of centuries of
inequitable systems and policies that shaped the lives of herself, her grandparents, and all those
who came before her. So she decided to disrupt the system - by becoming an educator.

Nicole Williams founded theLuminescentLeader, a boutique leadership development
consulting company, to actively disrupt systemic inequitable practices at the classroom and
school level through leadership coaching, adult professional development, and instructional
design. She works with dynamic organizations such as UnboundEd and the XQ Super School
Project, who are equally committed to dismantling the system that benefits from the
marginalization of our nation’s children, to support schools and educators nationally.

Prior to her work at theLuminescentLeader, Nicole served as the national instructional
designer and Senior Director of the New Leaders Aspiring Principals Program, a leadership
coach specifically focused on developing Special Education systems leaders, an elementary
grades school leader, a standards-aligned content designer for StudySync, a subsidiary of
McGraw-Hill, and a special education teacher.

Nicole holds a B.A. in History with a minor in African-American Studies from Loyola
University of New Orleans and a M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the
University of Texas - Arlington. She received her school leader certification through New
Leaders (Cohort 8) and also holds a State of Louisiana Level 2 Certification in Educational
Leadership and Special Education - Mild / Moderate exceptionalities grades 1 - 12