Lisa Graham Keegan

Chief Advisor | Arizona Chamber Foundation


How to Find Me

[email protected]

Follow me on Twitter! @LisaGK

Fun Fact

Lisa was the 1977 Ladies Side Saddle Champion at the Arabian Horse Show.

Lisa Graham Keegan currently serves as Chief Advisor at the Arizona Chamber Foundation, where she founded A for Arizona, a joint project of the Arizona Chamber Foundation and the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that seeks to accelerate the number of A quality public charter and public district schools in Arizona, with a focus on schools serving low-income communities.

Lisa has spent 17 years as Principal Partner at The Keegan Company, where she leads numerous projects, writes, and speaks on critical issues and emerging excellence in American education. Keegan’s expertise and outspoken nature have made her a sought after education reform expert who has worked with national education leaders, the media, U.S. Congress, state legislative bodies, business groups, policy organizations, community groups, and the education industry.

Lisa attended grade school and high school in Scottsdale, Arizona, graduated from Stanford University in 1981 with a Bachelor of Arts in human language, and then earned a Masters Degree in communications disorders from Arizona State University (ASU) in 1983. Her first work was as a speech pathologist at the Veterans Affairs Memorial Hospital in Phoenix, where she worked mostly with World War II veterans whose communication had been compromised due to stroke.

Lisa spent a decade from 1991 – 2001 serving as an Arizona elected official, first in the Arizona House of Representatives and then as state school superintendent. She championed clear and challenging academic standards and publicly transparent assessments, and fought successfully for the implementation of school choice, including Arizona’s landmark free open enrollment, charter school and tuition tax credit laws. She also led efforts to revise the state’s school finance formulas to reflect a commitment to equal access and choice of excellent schools, especially from 1995-2000 during the Arizona Supreme Court case formerly known as Roosevelt v. Bishop. This remains a critically important issue and a job she considers unfinished.

Lisa’s leadership in Arizona earned her a national reputation as a strong advocate for student-based education policies. In March of 1999, Drs. Milton and Rose Friedman personally presented Lisa with the first Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation Award for Leadership in Educational Choice. In 2000 and 2008, she was education advisor to the John McCain Campaigns for President, and was interviewed in 2000 by President-Elect Bush for the job of US Secretary of Education. In June of 2011, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce presented her with their Milton Freidman Award for visionary leadership in Arizona and in July of 2013 she was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools.

Lisa’s work has appeared or been cited in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Newsweek, Forbes Magazine, Education Week, The Arizona Republic and Phoenix Magazine. She has also discussed education issues on NPR, The PBS News Hour, Fox News Channel, CNBC, and local stations nationwide. She serves as national chairman of The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility Advisory Board, as a board member for America Succeeds, Teach for America/Phoenix, and the Arizona Charter Schools Association. In May of 2013, Keegan published her first book,“ Simple Choices: Thoughts on choosing environments that support who your child is meant to be.”

Lisa lives in Peoria with her husband, former State Representative and Justice of the Peace John Keegan, who also served as Mayor of Peoria, Arizona for a decade. They are members of the Arizona Episcopal Diocese, and have five children and two grandsons.