Pier Duncan is an experienced multi-sector people management, strategy and operations professional, having spent over a decade working at or alongside organizational leadership in the public and nonprofit sectors, and in tech. 

While at the New York City-based nonprofit The Opportunity Network, Pier served as chief of staff, working to optimize its C-Suite and senior management team toward strategic growth and the effective management of organizational priorities. Prior to joining OppNet, Pier was chief of staff and corporate secretary at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank where she optimized the management of the president’s office and senior management cabinet.

Before her time at Urban, Pier served in a variety of roles at the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). She acted as an advisor for  internal strategic communications to the New York City Public Schools Chancellor, writing principal-facing executive communications for the Chancellor and designing an employee engagement model.

Pier also spent three years acting as director of the Panel for Educational Policy — previously known as the Board of Education — at the New York City Department of Education under the Bloomberg and De Blasio mayoral administrations. In this capacity, she oversaw the execution of monthly public meetings and steered the passage of critical school utilization proposals, annual budgets, and operational contracts. 

Most recently, Pier managed people strategy and planning projects at financial tech company Cash App where she built and scaled cyclical business rhythms, processes, and enablement tools in support of people team priorities.

Pier also occasionally works as a freelance writer, focusing on narrative storytelling and interview-style digital work. Her writing has been published on Urban Institute’s Urban Wire, MailChimp’s digital magazine Bloom Season, National College Attainment Network (NCAN), and she has also written as a ghostwriter for New York City-based nonprofits. Pier is also the creator of Black Women Work, a digital project featuring long-form interviews with Black women on their professional experiences and lessons learned. Pier was spotlighted for this work on the podcast The Reset.

Pier is an alumnus of the National Equity Project Leading for Equity Fellowship, and the Education Pioneers Graduate Fellowship. She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.S. in Nonprofit Management from the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at The New School. She resides in Brooklyn, NY.