Chad Stacy, CPA, M.Ed.

Chad Stacy served as the Chief Financial Officer at Dunn School, a small boarding/day school near Santa Barbara, California for thirteen years. During that time, he helped the Head of School and Trustees navigate through two global recessions and the largest capital campaign in the school’s history. He is the creator of the Financial Sustainability Heat Map, a strategic measurement/communication/discipline tool that has been adopted by NBOA as a critical and culminating deliverable of the annual BIIS data collection process.

Chad is also an experienced and innovative teacher. He is the founding Director of Dunn School’s nationally recognized Robert W. Jurgensen Entrepreneurship program. This experiential, hands-on, project-based curriculum guides students through the management of profitable businesses, consulting with external companies and investing a $500,000 pool of funds.

Chad is a NBOA award recipient and volunteer. He was thrice published in Net Assets Magazine. He was awarded both the Will Hancock Unsung Hero (2020) and the Jeff Shields Innovation in School Business Operations (2023) awards. He has presented at several state and national conferences on the topics of: strategic measurement/communication and entrepreneurship/investing curriculum in K-12 schools. Chad was a member of the faculty cohort of NBOA’s Business Officer Institute (2021-23). He currently participates in semi-annual seminars introducing the Heat Map to a new audience of independent school CFOs.

Chad is a certified public accountant who began his career with the international accounting firm, Ernst and Young. Chad also earned a Master’s degree in Independent School Leadership from Vanderbilt University. Chad’s diverse experiences offer him a unique lens into the challenges and opportunities of independent schools considering strategic, growth and sustainability initiatives.