Biography

Joy L. King is a gifted bridge-builder, executive leader, entrepreneur, educator, performing artist, and volunteer. She has an extensive background delivering results-oriented leadership across school districts, nonprofits, and corporate clients. Joy is currently the CEO and Lifestyle Architect of Lifestyles by Joy, a full-service luxury project management firm that architects design concepts for individuals and companies ready to manifest abundance and infuse joy where they live, work, and play. Her goal is simple: create relief and ultimately, freedom. Through residential & commercial interior design, home organization & home staging services, and expert experience curation - Lifestyles by Joy restores peace to clients one project at a time.

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In addition to running her own company, Joy served as the Program Operations Lead at Shopify, responsible for the overall strategic, effective, and efficient operation of their Early Talent Headquarters team to attract, hire, and develop a diverse community of emerging talent by designing and delivering innovative work-integrated learning programs to accelerate participants' long-term career impact and building the infrastructure required for programs to onboard, scale quickly, and expand their reach globally. She has held executive leadership positions in many non-profits with causes ranging from tech workforce to college access, to childhood hunger and spent the first 10 years of her career in Chicago as a high school English teacher, Japanese language teacher, and Founding Administrator of a charter school. For the past 20+ years, Joy has committed herself to ensuring that systemically minoritized groups have access to spaces and experiences that are safe and inclusive.

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A Chicago native, Joy has a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education from DePaul University, Master of Arts in Educational Administration with an administrative certificate, from Governors State University, is a certified Organizational Development professional, and a social justice warrior.

Joy has served on a number of charter school boards including Chair of Sela PCS, Vice Chair of City Arts and Prep PCS, and is a member of Charter Board Partners Network.

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Joy was a featured speaker at the STEMconnector annual summit, a roundtable Cyber panelist at the CityLab annual conference, and served on a host of other workforce development, cyber security, education panels and speaking and keynote engagements. Most notably, Joy was featured in a Roadtrip Nation segment on PBS released in July 2020 (check it out here: http://rtn.is/to-be-determined).

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Regardless of the work setting, Joy has consistently been driven by her passion for ensuring that all people enjoy basic human rights – all in an effort to dismantle inequitable systems and create pathways to success. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, napping, spending quality time with her family, and brunching with friends. Fun facts: She speaks Japanese and is classically trained in ballet.