Kassi Longoria is the CEO for MAYA Consulting. Kassi is an equity and systems strategist with over 14 years of experience in early childhood education, family support, child welfare, and education, and is driven by her values of equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging. Kassi is inspired by liberatory design & believes the key to systems change is to authentically shift power to families and communities.
Kassi joined MAYA in 2019 and has held multiple roles in the company, including Principal Consultant, and most recently, Vice President of Early Childhood and Family Programs. She has championed MAYA’s purpose and has been instrumental in expanding MAYA’s support and impact. She has led and supported a variety of projects and engagements related to community-centered strategic planning, liberatory design, family economic well being, early learning and development, school-charter partnerships, collective impact, philanthropic advising and more. In her role as CEO, she leads MAYA’s strategic direction and supports the MAYA team in collaborating with schools, non-profit organizations, philanthropy, and public agencies to achieve equitable results for children, youth, and families.
Prior to her role with MAYA, Kassi led and supported a variety of initiatives and organizations in cross-sector collaboration, collective impact, early learning and development, family wellbeing, education, public-private partnerships, and state- and federal-grant management. She has held roles as an early childhood education program specialist at the Texas Education Agency, which oversees primary and secondary public education for more than 5 million students, and as an early childhood program specialist for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Prevention and Early Intervention Division, where she helped manage state and federal home visiting and child welfare programs.
Kassi holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Sciences from The University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Science in Family and Child Studies from Texas State University. Additionally, she is an Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Family Fellow, a prestigious, national leadership program for outstanding executives committed to leading and sustaining major systems reform and community change initiatives to achieve equitable results. In addition to her work at MAYA, she enjoys reading, cooking, yoga, traveling, and taking advantage of Austin’s live music scene. Kassi resides in Austin, Texas, with her husband, Matt, and their two dogs, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.