Colleen Dippel

Colleen Dippel founded Families Empowered in 2009 and is the current Chief Executive Officer. Families Empowered is a statewide parent service organization that has supported over 90,000 families across three cities in Texas. She is a former public-school teacher. She left teaching to help launch a private sector education technology start-up.

In 2001, she became the Director of the KIPP School Leadership Program. There she supported the implementation of a year-long training and evaluation program for school principals.  In 2008, she joined Aquinas Company as the Director of Education Initiatives. She launched Families Empowered while serving in this role.

Colleen was awarded Leadership for Education Equity’s Emerging Political Leader Fellowship and an Aspen Institute Pahara Fellowship. She holds a BA from The University of New York at Albany and a MA in Educational Leadership from National Louis University. Colleen is the proud mother of two active school-age children.