Dr. Candice McQueen has been NIET's chief executive officer since January 2019. NIET is a national nonprofit with 20 years of evidence-based work in building educator excellence to ensure all students have the opportunity for success. Prior to joining NIET, she was Tennessee's commissioner of education. As commissioner, she led the creation of a strategic plan called Tennessee Succeeds, which outlines strategies to increase college and career readiness for Tennessee's 1 million students. Today, students are posting record high ACT scores and graduation rates, and students in historically underserved student groups often outpaced their peers in growth on the 2018 state assessment. Dr. McQueen has long advocated for focusing on human capital as the primary lever for change. In 2018, researchers at Georgetown University pointed to Tennessee's teacher evaluation and professional development model as leading to career-long improvement in teachers and gains in student achievement. Prior to being commissioner, Dr. McQueen was dean of the college of education at Lipscomb University. She started her career as a classroom teacher, teaching in elementary and middle schools in Tennessee and Texas.