Barbara Dalio

Founder and Co-CEO

Barbara Dalio is the Founder of Dalio Education, and currently serves as its co-CEO. Dalio Education collaborates with public school educators, schools, non-profit organizations, and communities across Connecticut to advance positive outcomes for young people. She also serves as Co-Founder and Director of Dalio Philanthropies.

Barbara was born in New York, grew up in Spain, and graduated from the University of Madrid. She returned to the United States when she was 25 and worked at the Whitney Museum in New York prior to getting married.  Raising four sons in Connecticut, Barbara saw firsthand the challenges students, families, and educators face on a daily basis.

Having seen those challenges, and believing that we, as a society, should not be leaving anyone behind, Barbara has focused her philanthropic work on implementing data-driven strategies to help the 119,000 young people in Connecticut who are at-risk or disconnected from school, employment, and the communities in which they live.

That focus led Barbara to co-found two independent, non-profit organizations -- the Connecticut RISE Network and the Connecticut Opportunity Project – to address the myriad needs of these young people.

In 2023, Dalio Education commissioned a report entitled “Connecticut’s Unspoken Crisis” which, for the first time, quantified the number of young people in Connecticut who are at-risk or disconnected.  The report generated positive statewide media coverage, and was well-received by educators, policymakers and leaders in the nonprofit community.

In recognition of her collaborative work, Barbara has received the Connecticut Association of Schools’ 2018 Distinguished Friend of Education Award, the City of New Haven’s Community Care Award, and the Meriden Board of Education’s Community Support Award. In 2024, the Connecticut Education Association and the Connecticut Education Foundation awarded Barbara the CEA Excellence in Education Advocacy Award. 

Barbara and her husband, Ray, live in Connecticut and have four sons, four grandsons, and two granddaughters.