Sylvia Acevedo

Sylvia Acevedo (born 1956–1957) is an American engineer and businesswoman. She was the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Girl Scouts of the USA from 2016 to 2020. A systems engineer by education, she began her career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she was on the Voyager 2 team. She has held executive roles at Apple, Dell, and Autodesk. In 2018, Acevedo was included in a Forbes list of "America's Top 50 Women In Tech". She was a founder, with three others of REBA Technology, an infiniband company that was sold and also the Founder and CEO of CommuniCard. As CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, Acevedo led the organization's largest release of badges, over 100 badges in STEM and Outdoors over three years.

Early life and education Sylvia Acevedo was born near Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota where her father was serving as an officer in the military. Her family moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico. She joined the Girl Scouts at age seven. She was one of the first Hispanic students at Stanford University to earn a M.S. in systems engineering. She has often spoken about how being bilingual shaped her worldview and influenced her leadership style. In her memoir, Path to the Stars, Acevedo revealed that it was stargazing on her first Brownies Girl Scout trip that ignited her interest in science. She was on the Solar Polar Solar Probe (SPSP) and Voyager 2 teams at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Acevedo founded Austin, Texas–based CommuniCard. She was awarded the Business Award by The Aguila Awards Foundation in 2005. In 2009, Acevedo joined the Girl Scouts of the USA national board of directors. President Barack Obama appointed Acevedo to the Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics in 2011.

Acevedo was a national board member of the Girl Scouts of the USA from 2009 to 2016. Acevedo is a former board member of the Hispanic Scholarship Consortium, Con Mi Madre and the Trinity School. Acevedo served on the founding executive board of the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders. In July 2016 she was appointed interim CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA.

Acevedo was appointed permanent CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA in May 2017. Under her tenure, the Girl Scouts introduced over 100 badges in Outdoors and STEM badges in areas such as robotics, coding, engineering, and cybersecurity. In 2018, Fast Company named Acevedo one of its “100 Most Creative People in Business.” Acevedo was awarded the 2019 Hispanic Heritage Award For Leadership. Later that year, she published her first memoir, "Path to the stars: My Journey from Girl Scout to Rocket Scientist." This book is a message to young readers about Acevedo's early life and career journey. In 2019, InStyle named Acevedo in The Badass 50: Meet the Women Who Are Changing the World. That same year, she was honored by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) for her contributions to advancing Latinas in STEM.

Acevedo stepped down as CEO of the Girl Scouts on August 10, 2020.

Acevedo joined the board of directors of Qualcomm in November 2020 and serves on its Governance Committee. In January 2022, she was named a member of the board of directors for Credo. She joined the board of directors of Quark.ai, a generative AI startup, in 2023. She is also a sought-after keynote speaker on leadership, STEM education, and diversity, having delivered talks at global conferences including SXSW and the Aspen Ideas Festival.

In September 2025, The Fund for the City of New York hosted a book launch for Acevedo. This launch was for the release of her newly published book called "The Trailblazer's Playbook." She wrote the book to share a framework that she created called "Clarity-Courage-Conviction" and using her life stories to convey this idea. These life stories draw upon the lessons she has learned throughout her career, condensed into a playbook to help others with their own leadership development.

Significant publications

2025: Wiley, The Trailblazer's Playbook: Practical Tactics to Rise Against the Odds and Achieve Excellence, Sylvia Acevedo

2020: Creating welcoming communities for LGBTQ migrants: Living room-style chats for service providers, Sylvia Acevedo, Oscar Rivera, Miriam Potocky, Mitra Naseh, Edward J Alessi, and Aaron Burgess

2018: Clarion Books, Path To the Stars, My journey from Girl Scouts to Rocket Scientist, an aspirational middle school memoir. Sylvia Acevedo

2016: Harcourt Mifflin Houghton, Critical Growth Needs for English Learner Preschoolers, Sylvia Acevedo

2016: UCLA White paper: Realizing the Economic Advantages of a Multilingual Workforce, Dr. Patricia Gandara, Sylvia Acevedo