Fellow Spotlight: Delicia Jones

Delicia Jones is the Chief Strategy Officer of NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy focused on education, and an alum of the Nexus Fellowship. 

When Delicia Jones participated in the second cohort of the Nexus Fellowship, she didn’t anticipate changing jobs. However, the discussions at Nexus started to spark questions for Delicia about what she really wanted in her career and her potential for greater leadership. Delicia credits a variety of experiences within Nexus, including the inquiry-based coaching, for preparing her to take a leap in her career. But the pivotal moment for her was writing her self-manifesto, an exercise that every Nexus fellow undertakes as a part of the fellowship. It took Delicia a long time to get started, but once she began writing, she flew through it.

“It was empowering because it was within me. I just needed the space to get unlocked…. I knew the vision I had, I knew who I was. [It made me wonder] what else is in my brain that I’m not allowing to come to the surface?”

The foundational focus on self and then on liberatory leadership in the first two residency weeks supports Nexus fellows to maximize their potential. 

In the final months of her fellowship, Delicia connected with Frances Messano, now the CEO of venture philanthropy NewSchools. In that conversation, she found herself resonating with the organization’s mission in a different way, seeing things she did not realize she was looking for prior to Nexus.

“If I’d had that conversation with Frances a year ago, I probably wouldn’t have gone for it. I would have been grounded in fear versus possibility.”

Just a few months after the fellowship, Delicia joined as Chief of Staff, and is now the Chief Strategy Officer leading the national philanthropy through a new strategic planning process.