Rachael Tutwiler Fortune is president of the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, a civic intermediary leading cross-sector efforts to strengthen public education in one of Florida’s largest and fastest-growing cities by activating community support, connecting partners, and advancing effective ideas for student success.

Since 2018, she has led JPEF’s growth as a trusted convener, advancing work in teacher and school leadership development, early literacy, career-connected learning, youth voice, and parental advocacy. She returned to JPEF as executive vice president in 2017 and earlier led JPEF’s ONE by ONE campaign, which engaged more than 1,600 residents to shape shared priorities for public education and inform collective action.

She has held national leadership roles at America’s Promise Alliance, where she served as senior director of the GradNation Campaign, and at the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama Administration, where she managed multi-million-dollar Race to the Top grants supporting state and local reform. She was also an Education Pioneers Fellow with Oakland Unified School District, contributing to strategic planning for community schools.

She is the Vice Chair at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville and the Consortium of Florida Education Foundations, and a member of the boards of Baptist Health System and City Year Jacksonville. Earlier in her career, she taught at S.P. Livingston Elementary School in Jacksonville as a Teach For America charter corps member and currently serves as an adjunct instructor of leadership at the University of North Florida.

She is a Pahara Fellow and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Florida and a master’s degree in education policy, organization, and leadership from Stanford University.

She is married to Emmanuel Fortune and is the proud mother of their three children, Nicholas, Elle, and Riley.