During her Education Pioneers Fellowship, Debbie worked with the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), where she collaborated with the President and the Programs and Service Manager to create the Executive Leadership Summer Institute (ELSI), a week-long executive development program for charter school authorizers. Her work primarily focused on benchmarking comparable executive trainings for education leaders as well as creating and executing a qualitative market research study of authorizers. Her research led to the creation of the ELSI strategy and one year operational work plan.

Debbie began her career in consulting at the Boston Consulting Group where she worked with Fortune 500 clients to analyze strategic, operational, financial, and organizational risks and initiatives. Select assignments included creating a risk control and implementation strategy for a diversified energy company, a post merger integration strategy for two consumer goods companies, and a business portfolio review for a multi-concept restaurant company. Prior to her work with the BCG, she was the executive director of a local non-profit music festival. She has also held leadership positions and membership roles in numerous philanthropic organizations.