Gloria Feldt

Gloria Feldt is a professor of practice in Arizona State University’s School of Social Transformation, an academic unit within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She teaches the women and gender studies course “Women, Power and Leadership,” which is based on her book “No Excuses: Nine Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power.” The course delves into women’s ambivalent relationship with power, examining reasons why women do and do not run for office and providing nine practical tools to help women intentionally use their gifts, focus their passions, and create the future of their choice. Feldt’s research interests and academic focus center on women’s empowerment, gender parity in leadership, and overcoming cultural barriers to women’s advancement, emphasizing that legal doors are open but women must lead themselves through them without excuses.

A pioneering leader in reproductive justice, Gloria Feldt began her 30-year career with Planned Parenthood as a teen mother from rural Texas who married at 15 and had three children by age 20. She earned a college degree in her thirties and rose to become president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern Arizona before serving as president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1996 to 2005. In 2013, she co-founded and serves as president of Take the Lead, a nonprofit dedicated to achieving leadership gender parity by 2025 through workshops on gender bilingual communication—addressing how men and women are socialized to communicate differently—and data-driven strategies like salary disparity surveys she conducted during her Planned Parenthood tenure. Feldt, a nationally recognized author, speaker, and feminist advocate, has contributed to ASU as a keynote speaker at the ASU Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation’s 26th Annual Nonprofit Conference on Sustainability Strategies in 2018, where she urged inclusive empowerment movements involving men and courageous leadership actions. She has also appeared in ASU’s Origins Project discussions on sex, gender, and reproductive rights and provided commentary on KJZZ radio about women’s leadership pathways.