Dallas Leadership Luncheon Brochure 2024

Abby & Todd Williams
2024 VIRGINIA CHANDLER DYKES
LEADERSHIP AWARD RECIPIENT
Philanthropists Abigail “Abby” and Todd
Williams have spent their careers as public
education advocates.
Founder and CEO of United to Learn, Abby
Williams lives out the organization’s mission of
transforming relationships between school and
community in the pursuit to accelerate student
achievement and develop purposeful leaders.
Abby has dedicated the past two decades to
efforts eliminating inequities in the educational
system across north Texas. Raised by a singleparent
mother who worked as many as three
jobs to make ends meet and build a better
life for her children, Abby knows first-hand the impact a high quality, public
education can have on one’s life and their families’. Before launching United
to Learn in 2012, Abby served as Vice President and Director of Charitable
Services for Goldman Sachs & Co. where she was responsible for the
development and implementation of the firm’s annual giving efforts totaling
$25 million worldwide.
Todd Williams is the founding Chairman and CEO of The Commit
Partnership, the nation’s largest educational collective impact organization
with over 200 institutions and educating more than 790,000 students. The
Commit Partnership is focused on improving post-secondary completion
and economic mobility levels across the north Texas region and the state
overall. Todd is a senior trustee and former board chair for Austin College.
In 2019, Todd was appointed by Governor Greg Abbott to serve on the
five-member State Land Board, responsible for overseeing the investment
of a $12 billion fund supporting Texas’ K-12 public education system. Todd
currently serves as an advisory board member of Educate Texas, an
educational initiative of Communities Foundation of Texas.
In 2007, Abby and Todd helped found a K-12 free tuition public charter
school operated by Uplift Education that educates 1,500 primarily lowincome
children in northwest Dallas. Together, the couple also served as the
founding chairs of Teach for America DFW’s Regional Advisory Board. Abby
and Todd have successfully advocated locally and in the Texas Legislature
for investments in education.