Dr. Ileana Albareda is the Executive Director of Green Schools National Network (GSNN), where she leads a growing national movement to reimagine K–12 education through whole-school sustainability, student-centered climate action, and systems-level transformation. With more than 25 years of experience in public education, she brings a rare blend of instructional expertise, strategic leadership, and cross-sector bridge building to position schools as engines of community resilience and long-term societal impact.

Prior to joining GSNN, Albareda served as a district leader in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the third-largest school district in the United States. There, she led large-scale academic improvement efforts grounded in data-informed practice and organizational coherence. Over time, her leadership expanded beyond performance outcomes alone to focus on cultivating purpose-driven systems; aligning culture, instruction, operations, and partnerships to better serve students and communities.

Under her leadership, GSNN partners with schools, districts, nonprofits, philanthropy, and purpose-driven companies nationwide to embed sustainability as a unifying framework for academic excellence, operational stewardship, and student well-being. Through national convenings, cross-sector collaborations, and initiatives such as the Green Spark Innovation Showcase, she advances a vision in which students are not simply learners, but civic leaders and problem-solvers prepared to address complex global challenges.

Albareda’s leadership is deeply values-driven. Shaped by a family culture that viewed education as both responsibility and opportunity, she believes lasting transformation occurs when systems honor community voice, expand access, and cultivate collective ownership. She is committed to building durable networks of leaders who see sustainability not as an initiative, but as a lens for advancing resilience, shared prosperity, and intergenerational impact.

Her work centers on aligning people, purpose, and policy to create schools, and systems, worthy of the next generation.