Dr. Philonda Grant believes leaders do their best, most sustainable work when they are supported as whole people — not just as the roles they hold. That conviction is the through-line of her career, and it shapes the program she leads today as Senior Director of Leadership Coaching at the KIPP Foundation, which supports more than 190 education leaders across the network.
Her coaching is healing-centered and belonging-focused. In practice, that means leadership that doesn't ask people to burn themselves out to be effective — coaching that affirms a leader's strengths, identities, and lived experiences as assets, and creates the space for them to lead with clarity, care, and a sense of belonging in the work.
Philonda came to coaching through the classroom and the schoolhouse. She began as an early-childhood teacher, then joined KIPP DC as a founding lead teacher in 2007, and went on to serve as founding principal of KIPP DC: Discover Academy for eight years — building a school community from the ground up — before moving to California and stepping into coaching at KIPP SoCal. Across nearly two decades she has been a teacher, a principal, a scholar-practitioner, and a coach, which means she has sat in nearly every seat the leaders she now coaches occupy.
She holds a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership, with a focus on social justice, from San Francisco State University, along with a master's in leadership and adult learning from Northeastern University and a bachelor's from Trinity Washington University. She is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and draws on her background in psychology to inform how she develops both leaders and the coaches who serve them. Much of her work centers on helping leaders — and especially Black women in education — prepare for, step into, and thrive in senior leadership.
Her hope for this program is simple and ambitious at once: that the people who carry our schools are seen, supported, and challenged at the right moments — so they can sustain the work, and themselves, over the long arc of a career.
Learn more about Dr. Grant's vision and the Leadership Coaching Program:
- About the program — our definition of coaching, who we work with, and how it works.
- Meet our coaches — forty Leadership Coaches with deep experience across KIPP and beyond.
- Our impact — eighteen years of coaching at KIPP, with the full April 2026 Impact Analysis Report.
Have questions for Dr. Grant or the coaching team? pjohnsongrant@kipp.org