Rachael Tutwiler Fortune is President of the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, where she leads efforts to close the opportunity gap and ensure every child has access to a high-quality public education. In addition to her role at JPEF, Rachael serves as an Adjunct Instructor of Leadership at the University of North Florida.
Rachael previously served as Senior Director of the GradNation Campaign at America’s Promise Alliance and as a Program Officer in the Office of the Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama Administration. In these roles, she managed multi-million-dollar Race to the Top grants and supported state and local efforts to advance education reform.
Before returning to JPEF, Rachael was an Education Pioneers Fellow at Oakland Unified School District, where she helped strengthen strategic planning for community schools. She earlier led JPEF’s ONE-by-ONE campaign, engaging over a thousand stakeholders in creating a shared vision for public education in Duval County. She returned to the organization in 2017 as Executive Vice President and was named President in 2018. Her career began as a Teach For America charter corps member at S.P. Livingston Elementary School in Jacksonville.
Rachael serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville and the Consortium of Florida Education Foundations. She also sits on the boards of Baptist Health System and City Year Jacksonville, and on the Florida Education Funders Steering Committee for the Florida Philanthropic Network. In addition, she holds advisory roles with Jacksonville University's Public Policy Institute and the University of North Florida’s College of Arts and Sciences.
She holds a master’s degree in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of North Florida.
Recognized for her leadership, Rachael was named a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scouts of Gateway Council in 2023 and one of the First Coast’s 40 Under 40 by the Jacksonville Business Journal in 2020. She is an alumna of Leadership Florida’s Education Class of 2018 and Leadership Jacksonville’s Class of 2022.
Rachael is married to Emmanuel Fortune and is the proud mother of their three children, Nicholas, Elle, and Riley.