Stacey Dione Mitchell is a servant leader, Black woman, wife, mother, sister, auntie, niece and friend from a low-income community on the South Side of Chicago with over 20 years of experience in the workforce.  She is also the granddaughter of Theresa Potts (pictured to the bottom left), who was born in Columbus Georgia in 1916 and served as the CEO of the Potts family until her passing in 2016. She was the first and most effect leader Stacey has ever witnessed, and Stacey seeks to apply wisdom garnered under her leadership and love in all that she does.

Stacey’s career began as a 6th grade Reading, Language Arts and Social Studies teacher, where she became an awarded educator, most especially when she was selected as Teacher of the Year by her peers. Since then, she has worked toward equity in her roles as the Senior Managing Director of Program then Senior Managing Director of Staff DEI at Teach For America. Subsequently, she led People and Equity work as the Vice President of People and Equity at Educators for Excellence and then as the founding leader of the Obama Foundation’s People department. 

In 2020, Stacey made the bold decision to found SAGEli [sayj - lee] Consulting to help organizations address some of this country’s most pervasive social issues. She has the humble privilege of leading all facets of business ownership in her work across sectors and industries with her dynamic clients. Through her company, she has had the opportunity to coach rising and executive leaders; design and facilitate hundreds of hours of in-person and virtual, live and recorded trainings on a variety of topics related to org strategy, change management, DEI, etc.; develop and implement equitable and inclusive org-wide, team-level and individual strategic plans; develop and implement data-based policies; design and lead various community experiences, such as team retreats, learning session, etc.; speak to audiences about a variety of topics; lead conflict resolution experiences through restorative practices; as well as serve as an embedded Chief of Infrastructure (Operations), Chief of Learning, interim Chief of Staff and as an Ombudsperson. 

Stacey is also a published writer and teaches High School Equivalency courses at her neighborhood community college. She currently resides in a suburb of Chicago with her husband and their three children.