Dr. Yolanda Watson Spiva serves as president of Complete College America, bringing nearly three decades of leadership in postsecondary education to the organization. Her range of experience includes executive leadership, general management, federal government, public affairs, operations and academic officer positions.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, CCA is a bold national advocate for dramatically increasing college completion rates. At the center of a network unafraid of complexity, CCA studies the best ideas and co-designs the most promising practices, translating them into actionable strategies and equipping cross-sectional teams to accelerate implementation. The CCA Alliance consists of 53 states, systems, territories, and consortia, creating a movement of builders convinced that better is possible and driving change at every level for every leader, every campus, every system.
Since becoming president of CCA in 2018, Dr. Watson Spiva has led several significant initiatives that have strengthened the organization and the college completion movement. Under her leadership, CCA was selected as one of 13 organizations from more than 200 to begin the blueprinting phase for the Gates Foundation’s Intermediaries for Scale initiative, eventually becoming one of six partner organizations in the IFS Higher Endeavor ecosystem. CCA also launched the PBCC-HBCC Network under Dr. Watson Spiva’s leadership and supported by funding from Lumina Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, to align academic programs to workforce needs at predominantly Black and historically Black community colleges across eight states. She also led CCA in securing a major gift from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott to support operational and programmatic work. She has spearheaded strategies for utilizing new technology to scale college completion strategies and close institutional achievement gaps. In 2019, Dr. Watson Spiva created CCA’s first-ever strategic plan, followed in 2025 with a bold, updated organizational strategic plan, positioning CCA to set a renewed public agenda for college completion.
Before coming to CCA, Dr. Watson Spiva served as president & CEO of College Success Foundation (CSF), a national nonprofit college readiness, access, success, and scholarship organization headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, which serves nearly 12,000 low-income students, annually, through an integrated system of academic, financial, social and emotional supports to help them access and complete a postsecondary education. She also previously served as CEO and executive director of Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams) Atlanta Inc., a nonprofit based in Atlanta, GA, which served as a strategic partner to the Atlanta Public School District as well as hundreds of colleges and universities across the nation to increase the number of low-income, first-generation, Atlanta students of color graduating from high school and college.
Prior to Project GRAD, she was assistant dean at Trinity College in Washington, DC. Dr. Watson Spiva has also held various positions with the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, DC, and Atlanta, GA. in the Offices of Postsecondary Education, Student Financial Assistance, and Policy, Planning and Innovation, culminating in her service as Region IV Public Affairs Director in the southeast regional Office of the Secretary of Education.
In addition to having authored numerous research articles, Dr. Watson Spiva coauthored the NAACP Image Award-nominated book, Daring to Educate: The Legacy of the Early Spelman College Presidents (1881-1953). She has been awarded the prestigious Turknett Leadership Character Award for outstanding leadership in the nonprofit sector.
Dr. Watson Spiva earned her undergraduate degree in economics from Spelman College, her master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago, and her Ph.D. in higher education from Georgia State University. She also holds a board certification as an executive coach from the Center for Credentialing Education (CCE).