Nanci Luna Jiménez has committed to her own healing for more than 30 years to be a transformative guide, heart-centered listener, and authentic companion for leaders and change-makers committed to racial healing and social justice. Since founding the Luna Jiménez Institute for Social Transformation in 1994, she has reached tens of thousands of people with her core message of human goodness and connection as a transformational approach to social change.

Nanci works from the premise that systems are made up of humans, and unhealed humans perpetuate harm and injustice. Her approach centers healing and authentic relationships as the foundation for sustainable systems change and accountability. She gently reminds people what they already know: oppression can only end with their healing, and, with support, they can completely heal!

Nanci coaches and consults with individuals and intact groups who are ready to be lovingly challenged and held with compassion as they unwind patterns which no longer serve their most whole vision for themselves, their work, and their world. Certified as an IAF Master level process facilitator, she expertly speaks to and works with what is unnamed, unspoken, and invisible in the room. Nanci guides organizations, boards, and communities to deal with unaddressed emotions that can block creativity and collaboration necessary for transformative culture shifts.

As a sought-after TEDx speaker, Nanci’s vulnerable, insightful, and experiential keynotes leave audiences feeling seen and inspired to take the next step on their healing journey. Nanci imparts new language, fresh ways of thinking, and tangible practices that renew and reinvigorate through her numerous ground-breaking in-person, virtual, and on-demand programs, and courses.

Nanci’s approach honors the legacy and teachings of Dr. Erica “Ricky” Sherover-Marcuse, who coined the term “unlearning racism,” and Lillian Roybal Rose, M.Ed., an expert in cross-cultural communication. From them, she learned that ending oppression means coming home to ourselves, each other, and the planet.

Nanci was a Fellow with the Presidio Institute’s Cross Sector Leadership Program. She completed the Executive Leadership Program through the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Center for Creative Leadership in Brussels, Belgium as a National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI) Fellow. In August 2001 she attended the United Nations World Conference against Racism Non-Governmental Forum in Durban, South Africa as a delegate with United to End Racism (UER) and served as an international observer for the Haitian presidential elections in 1995. She was a Ford Foundation Fellow and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and received her BA cum laude from Yale University. She also attended the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras and completed El Programa Interdiciplinario de la Mujer at the Colegio de México in Mexico City.

Of Afro-Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage, Nanci was born in Detroit, MI, and raised in Detroit and Tucson, AZ. When she isn’t innovating on the groundbreaking work of her mentors, Nanci enjoys planting native habitat and making meals with the harvest from her Portland, Oregon garden. She loves lifting weights, forest bathing, walking, hiking, cycling, warm ocean swimming, and a very restorative yoga practice. For her spirit, she dances and drums Bomba in Borikén (Puerto Rico) whenever she can!