Niesha Taylor

Niesha Taylor, Ph.D., is NACE’s first Director of Career Readiness. She brings a wealth of experience and knowledge that is aligned with advancing NACE’s mission critical career readiness strategies, programs, and services. Taylor has a deep commitment to educational and labor market equity. She earned her Master's in Education from the New School for Social Research and taught Spanish in NYC public high schools. She then completed her Ph.D. in linguistics at the CUNY Graduate Center. Taylor spent much of her career working in higher education within the City University of New York system where she became an avid student of and advocate for systems change focused on racial and social justice. In 2015, Niesha joined LaGuardia Community College’s division of Academic Affairs working on campus-wide strategic planning, assessment, and a number federal grant projects. In 2017, she joined Guttman Community College and served as their Dean for Academic Innovation and Career Success. It was at Guttman that she began to focus her work more intentionally on the career learning space where she oversaw the career center and was champion for career education grounded in the curriculum. Most recently, Taylor served as the senior director for career pathways at the New York Jobs CEO Council, a nonprofit organization led by the CEOs of 30+ of the largest employers in New York whose goal is to provide access to living wage jobs for 100,000 New Yorkers from under-resourced communities.