Schlechty Center

Pat Willis Executive Director

Institute for Student Achievement

Pat Willis is the executive director of VOICES for Georgia's Children, a statewide organization that supports research, communication, and advocacy for issues related to children and families. She became the first director of VOICES in August 2003 after achieving over 30 years of accomplishments in the corporate sector, the public sector and in volunteer service.

During 20 years at BellSouth Corporation, she was the founding director and subsequent president of the BellSouth Foundation, an endowed trust devoted to improving education in the Southeast and Latin America. Through almost $50 million of grants and programs, the foundation achieved national recognition and respect in the issues of teacher preparation, school leadership and education technology, and international recognition for Pronino, an education initiative in 10 countries of Latin America.

Pat spent the first seven years of her career in the Research and Evaluation Division of Atlanta Public Schools and also served as a political campaign consultant in Atlanta in the late 1970s.

In Georgia, Pat is on the Executive Committee of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education and the Advisory Board for the Georgia State University College of Health and Human Sciences. Nationally, she is a member of the Leadership Council of Voices for America's Children and the board of the Schlechty Center for Leadership in School Reform in Kentucky. She has recently served on the boards of the Foundation Center in New York and the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund at the Aspen Institute. A trustee of Marietta (OH) College, her alma mater, in 2008 she completed four years as chair of the board.