Dr. Claire Oliveros has over 30 years of experience leading in higher education as a Filipina American woman before she stopped waiting for institutions to make space for her and started building the frameworks she needed herself.

She spent more than 30 years in higher education, including serving as a community college president, navigating the glass cliff, surviving institutional harm, and learning what it means to lead from your full self rather than the version of yourself the institution finds most comfortable.

As a Filipina American raised in the United States, she did not grow up speaking Tagalog fluently. Reclaiming the language as an adult, imperfectly and intentionally, has been its own act of decolonization. The Filipino terms woven through her work are not decoration. They are an invitation to come home to what was always yours.

She is the Founder and CEO of Claire Oliveros Consulting LLC and The NARRA Leadership Institute™, the creator of the NARRA Method, a decolonizing leadership framework grounded in liberatory leadership, embodiment, mindfulness, and Filipino cultural wisdom, and the developer of the Filipina Leadership Breakthrough System™, a 12-module program for Filipina leaders and Women of Color navigating the interlocking systems of racism, sexism, and classism in their institutions.

Her work is informed by the scholarship of Paulo Freire, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Gloria Anzaldúa. She holds a PhD in Education from Oregon State University and hosts the Ascend with Claire Oliveros podcast.

Claire built this guide, and the program it leads to, because she needed this when she was a leader inside an institution and they did not exist for her.

"Ingat Ka. Take care of yourself. That is not a soft suggestion. It is a leadership philosophy." — Dr. Claire Oliveros