Hon. Beverly Perdue

Former Governor, State of North Carolina
Chairman, digiLEARN

Bev Perdue was elected North Carolina’s 73rd governor in 2008, the first woman to serve as chief executive of the state. Her trailblazing administration was dedicated to creating jobs, protecting and strengthening education, accountability and transparency, and shepherding the state through the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.  During her tenure, North Carolina was one of only eight states to maintain a AAA bond rating for four consecutive years.  In addition, she announced more than 100,000 new jobs and more than $22.5 billion in corporate investment during that time.  While governor, North Carolina was consistently ranked as one of the best states in the country in which to do business.  

Perdue led the transformation of North Carolina’s classrooms for the 21stcentury by investing in innovative education technology and creating public-private partnerships to fully integrate technology into the state’s education system. Under her leadership, North Carolina’s statewide broadband education network for public schools, universities and community colleges was created. The partnership and network are recognized as a national model because now North Carolina school districts collectively use six times the bandwidth while expending essentially the same costs they did more than five years ago. She also led a statewide reading initiative so that students were on grade level by third grade by investing in technology tools to personalize learning, invested $22 million for a School Connectivity initiative, and created the state’s first Virtual Public School. Governor Perdue’s leadership in taking innovative education technology initiatives to a statewide scale will be a lasting legacy. 

Since leaving elected public service, Governor Perdue founded and is chair of DigiLEARN: Digital Learning Institute, a non-profit institution to accelerate digital learning at all ages.  The DigiLEARN board is nonpartisan and is comprised of former governors, state legislators and national digital learning experts.  She is Managing Director of the Perdue Strategy Group, working with clients to develop short and long term strategic plans and solutions involving planning, policy, acquisition and financing in both the  public and private sectors.  She also serves as Senior Education Advisor to Whiteboard Advisors, a unique strategy and consulting firm, serves on DQC Board of Directors, and on the Higher Ed Quality Assurance Task Force.  Perdue also serves on the corporate boards of several educational technology companies as well as on the boards of several other businesses including the National Assessment Governing Board which oversees NAEP.   She worked as a Resident Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and served as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at University.