Nancy Chou has spent two decades designing learning experiences built on purpose, belonging, and real-world skills, treating them not as separate goals, but as one design opportunity. Her work often starts at the very beginning, the first site, the first framework, the first pathway, drawing on vision and strategy to see what a program could become. She’s learned that the harder work isn’t the initial design; it’s building the trust, relationships, and conditions that let an idea move from vision into practice. At Arizona State University’s ASU Local, Nancy was on the founding team of the inaugural site for a new hybrid college model serving first-generation students, then built the frameworks and community structures that made belonging part of the design from day one. At LRNG, she supported the build of learning ecosystems across 10 cities by designing the learning experiences at their center, work aimed at recognizing and validating the learning young people were already doing outside the classroom, in libraries, community programs, and beyond. More recently, as Chief Learning Officer at 2Revolutions’ edsUP, she grew a competency-based learning marketplace to 3,000+ active educators over three years. Outside of work, Nancy is happiest with a jigsaw puzzle in front of her, a logic problem to untangle, and time with her kids.