St. Louis, MO, February 27, 2017– After a rigorous national search conducted by a highly regarded national executive search firm, the board of Parents as Teachers National Center (PATNC) voted on Friday to promote Constance Gully, MBA, to the position of President and CEO, effective immediately. Ms. Gully, Chief Financial Officer, has been serving as Interim CEO since August 2016.
“Our Board committee took great care to thoroughly vet several well-qualified candidates for this position,” stated Patricia Kempthorne, Founder and CEO of the Twiga Foundation, PATNC Board Vice-Chair, and Chair of the Board CEO search committee. “What became abundantly clear to the committee was that our very best candidate was right in front of us: Constance Gully.”
“Patricia and I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Constance in this interim period and getting to watch her in action. The decision on Friday was unanimous,” said Thomas C. Melzer, Co-founder and Managing Director of RiverVest Venture Partners and Chair of the PATNC Board. “Constance has been an active and effective interim CEO and has earned the trust and respect of our national partners and stakeholders. Constance also made her mark in recent months by leading the successful PAT International 2016 Conference, held in St. Louis with over 1100 attendees and significant newly established sponsorships. She also led the effort to garner financial support from a broader base of the organization’s key stakeholders.
“Constance has an exciting vision of the significant opportunities available to Parents as Teachers,” Melzer continued. “With a strong and cohesive senior team, and a national staff that is clearly flourishing under her leadership, we look forward to a bright future for the families and children we serve.”
“I am honored and excited to have been given this opportunity to lead an organization of which I am so proud, and with such a talented and experienced staff that supports so many families and young children across the country and the world,” noted Ms. Gully. “My family has benefitted from the services of Parents as Teachers and I look forward to building on the hard work and success of our previous chief executives, including our founder Mildred Winter.”
Ms. Gully is a licensed Certified Public Accountant with professional memberships in the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants and the National Association of Black Accountants. Prior to joining Parents as Teachers in 2014, she served as Executive Vice President for Business and Financial Affairs at Harris-Stowe State University, a historically Black public university located in mid-town St. Louis and in a dual role as the Interim President for eleven months. She led the Campus Expansion Committee that oversaw the planning, design and construction of more than $50 million of development on the campus. Under Constance’s sixteen years of leadership, Harris-Stowe maintained a stellar financial operation in a climate of declining state funding, including clean external financial audits for each of those years.
Ms. Gully practiced public accounting for more than a decade before working in the higher education and nonprofit arenas. She was responsible for planning, performing and managing external and internal audits for government and nonprofit entities. She also served as managing or senior consultant for various management reviews and operational assessments of administrative and financial operations, including assisting in the implementation of redesigned processes.
Ms. Gully serves in two gubernatorial appointed positions as a member and Chair Emeritus of the Dr. Martin Luther King State Celebration Commission for the state of Missouri and Vice Chair of the Bi-State Development Agency Board of Commissioners. In addition, Constance is a member of the Missouri History Museum Sub-District Board and serves as Treasurer of the La Salle Middle Charter School Board in St. Louis. She is the wife of André Gully and proud mother of Nicholas Bowman (her Alum PAT baby).
