Mary Marx is the President & CEO of the Pace Center for Girls and over the past decade has led the organization through an extensive period of growth. As a prevention and early intervention model for middle and high school aged girls, Pace provides the full academic school day and comprehensive wrap around social services so that thousands of girls across Florida get back on track to graduate high school, stay out of the juvenile justice system and break generational cycles of poverty and violence.

Since its founding in 1985, Pace’s direct service work has positively impacted the lives of more than 50,000 girls and over the past decade its work on impacting public systems and policies has contributed to a more than 50% decrease in the number of girls that are referred to Florida’s juvenile justice system. In 2019 Pace embarked on a national expansion strategy, beginning in Georgia, using a community participatory action model grounded in the needs, issues, concerns and strategies of communities to achieve community transformation and social change.

Marx’s 2009 appointment as the CEO of Pace marked a new era for the organization. She has led Pace through a major organizational transformation, implementing a growth strategy that has doubled the number of girls, increased revenues by more than sixty percent and put critical infrastructure into place to position the organization for continued growth and expansion on a national scale.