In 2019, ACE Founder Emmy O’Dwyer launched the Louisiana Early Leaders Academy at the Louisiana Department of Education. She was inspired to do this after seeing that while the average early childhood teacher worked for 2 or so years, directors stayed in their centers for 7-9 years. How could we leverage these leaders to increase both organizational culture (to increase teacher retention) and improve systems?  She conducted a landscape analysis, designed a pilot that won us second place at Harvard’s Saul Zaentz Innovation Challenge, secured full funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and launched an RFP process to identify a vendor to implement the program. Now in its six year, we have trained over 200 directors across the state, who increasingly lead at national, state, and local levels.