2026 9NEWS Public Sector Leader of the Year Finalist Dr. Angie Paccione
Leading Colorado honors leaders who are shaping the future of our state through innovation, service, and impact across every sector. This year, we are proud to recognize finalists across three categories: For-Profit Leader of the Year, Nonprofit Leader of the Year, and Public Sector Leader of the Year.
The Public Sector Leader of the Year award recognizes leaders in government who champion collaboration, elevate community voices, and advance policies and systems that improve quality of life for Coloradans statewide.
Dr. Angie Paccione wants to be a multimillionaire. Not measured in dollars and cents but measured in lives inspired and transformed. She is well on her way. Dr. Angie‘s passion and purpose is to activate potential – the potential for greatness that exists in every single one of us. She lives by her credo, “I am as committed to your success, as I am to my own.” In 2019, then Governor-elect Jared Polis asked her to join his Cabinet. She agreed because she is committed to his success. Her credo has no expiration date. When you visit her office, you’ll see photos of the team of employees at the department of higher education. She makes sure team members are seen, heard, valued, and celebrated. A truth that drives her leadership practice is that everyone wants to be great and has potential: stored greatness. Dr. Angie believes that it’s up to leaders to create the conditions for individuals to activate that potential and she has made a career out of doing so.
Dr. Angie grew up in the south Bronx, New York City as a biracial daughter of a young black teenage woman. Her mother and grandmother, two strong black women, instilled in Angie, a passion for education and a belief that she could do and be anything she wanted to. They instilled this in her at a time in our country when it was not true for them. Angie was born before the civil rights movement, before the women’s rights movement, before the voting rights act, before it was legal in all 50 states for her mother and birth father to be married. Still, Angie believed them and set about becoming all she was meant to be. While her mom and grandmother depended on education to open the doors, Angie was also gifted in basketball. She was the first African-American woman to receive a full ride, athletic scholarship at Stanford University. It was here that Angie really became a leader. Not only on the basketball court, but also in the community. Angie was a tutor in East Palo Alto, a peer counselor for her fellow students, and a leader for student organizations. Her coach gave her the nickname, “the mayor” because whenever the team would travel, Angie was always out front talking to strangers and being an ambassador for the Stanford basketball program. Her coach was prescient.
After a stint playing professional women’s basketball, Angie moved to Colorado and became a high school teacher and coach. She was the first woman in the history of Colorado to coach a large school boys varsity basketball team. While coaching and teaching at Smoky Hill High School, in Aurora, Colorado, Angie also stepped into leadership during a time of troubling race relations between the students at the high school. Using her position as the boys basketball coach, and Dean of students, Angie brought students together so that they can recognize their humanity, and understand that they had more, much more in common than what separated them. Together with the principal, some teachers and counselors, Angie started the Student Response Team. This was a collection of unlikely student leaders, who were influencers before that term became popular. The student group participated in activities where they could learn more about
each other and work together to solve problems for the school. Angie believes leaders should meet needs, solve problems, and set an example.
Realizing that you can lead from the grass roots, the middle, and from the top of an organization, Angie decided to pursue her masters and PhD in order to become a high school administrator. However, while pursuing her advanced degrees, she fell in love with a program that helped mid-career professionals become secondary school teachers. Angie saw this as a way to multiply her impact on the world. She also instilled in them a passion for helping students to understand and embrace humanity. She helped them to understand that if they cared for and about their students, the students would do their best work for the teacher. And she shared her credo with her graduate students, and they in turn shared it with their high school students. Students were also committed to one another’s success in the classroom through study groups, tutoring and caring. It was a virtuous cycle.
While serving as an assistant professor at Colorado State University, Angie was also involved in Habitat 4 Humanity - helping to serve the community of Fort collins and contributing sweat equity into developing homes for those less fortunate. In addition, she served on the board of a women’s shelter, and a program for trouble teens. No matter the work she does, her mission is to make the world a better place through activating the tremendous potential that exists but could be unactivated.
In 2000, Angie went to vote and saw that there was no democrat on the ballot for the fourth congressional district. That’s still small voice encouraged her to be on the ballot in 2002. And she was! Dr. Angie ran for the Colorado State House of Representatives and was the first African-American to be elected to office in Fort Collins and became the first African-American woman to be the majority caucus chair in 2005. In her capacity as an elected official, she focused on legislation for youth and families. Her first bill gave IB diploma graduates 24 college credits. She introduced laws to help prevent deaths due to binge drinking, laws permitting youth 17 and older to serve as voting members of boards of directors – all of her efforts were to empower communities and youth to be all they could be… just as her mother and grandmother empowered her.
Dr. Angie worked in the private sector with Verus Global, a company that helps leaders deliver on the business imperative by equipping them with the mindset, toolset, and skillset to focus on the human imperative as well. This is what distinguishes Dr. Angie as an effective and transformational leader. The human imperative is that your colleagues and supervisors care for about one another, they trust one another, they bring out the best in each other, and they recognize that everyone has potential for greatness. Angie brought all those principles with her when she said yes to Governor Polis to lead the Department of Higher Education. That’s why she keeps photos of all the team members on her windowsill.
At the department, Angie has led efforts to ensure that Colorado is a state where higher education is accessible, affordable, and where students can attain a credential of value that prepares them for jobs and careers in which they can be fulfilled and inspired. Angie’s team and the legislature created the FosterEd program which provides a full scholarship to college for students who were in the foster care system from age 13 and up. They followed that with EmpowerEd, which provides a full scholarship to high school students who are experiencing homelessness. In addition, with Angie‘s leadership and the support of the team and the legislature the Colorado ReEngaged (CORE) program was passed. This allows our four-year institutions to award an associates degree to students who have not completed a bachelors degree but have completed 70 credits and other criteria. In this way, those students would be able to maximize their earning potential by having a post-secondary credential. Under her leadership, Colorado has been recognized as a leader in innovative approaches to meeting the needs of students and employers.
Leaders can activate potential in individuals and communities through legislation, through mentorship, through creating opportunities for those who have none, and through creating the conditions to support their success. This is how Dr. Angie lives. Her own lived experience compels her. Without Title IX, she would never have been able to go to Stanford University, without the Loving vs Virginia case, her sibling’s marriages might not have been recognized in all 50 states, without the Voting Rights Act, Angie‘s family might not have been able to vote . We know the power of legislation to bring out the best in the citizens of our state and Dr. Angie is as committed to their success as she is to her own.
It’s difficult to go very far without running into someone Dr. Angie has taught, coached, inspired, collaborated with on a project to improve the community or to provide access to resources and services to activate their potential. She is a leader who embraces the role with clarity of purpose, driven by a mission, and is as committed to your success as she is to her own.
