From Crisis Management to Embedded Leadership, with Distinguished Business Officer Sandi Pierce

The 2025 recipient of the Ken White Distinguished Business Officer Award, Sandi Pierce, shares how her role at Cate School, a boarding school in Carpinteria, California, has shifted from chief business officer to assistant head of school, full stop. In her more than 30 years at Cate, Pierce has handled the full range of operations responsibilities, from response to severe wildfires and other natural disasters, "other duties" as an advisor and dorm parent. Building direct connections with students has critically informed her leadership in school business and operations. 

What is The Net Assets Podcast from NBOA?

The Net Assets podcast delves into the most pressing issues in independent school business and operations. Delivered by NBOA, the only national nonprofit membership association focused exclusively on fostering financial and operational excellence among independent PK-12 schools, each episode is based on a popular article in NBOA’s Net Assets magazine. Chief financial and operational officers alongside other leaders of school business share what inspires and challenges them as well as their approaches to problem solving and innovation. In each lively exchange, host Jeff Shields, NBOA president and CEO, teases out the human stories behind the printed story.