Announcing Our Founding President

After a national search, Cristo Rey Orlando High School has selected Amanda Livermore as its Founding President and CEO.

As Chief Executive Officer, the Founding President leads Cristo Rey Orlando High School to achieve its mission as a member of the national Cristo Rey Network, and its distinctive mission in Orlando to prepare local students for successful college completion.

Founding President & CEO

Amanda Livermore

Scheduled to open in 2025, Cristo Rey Orlando High School will join the prestigious Cristo Rey Network of 38 high schools across the nation.  To prepare the school for academic and operational success, Livermore will immediately begin to build and expand the school’s executive leadership team and board of directors, oversee the renovation of its Oakridge campus facility for classroom and workplace learning, hiring faculty and staff and recruiting the inaugural freshman class of 125 students.

“What inspires me most about the Cristo Rey mission is that it is built on the earliest seeds of our faith. Each of us is created in the image and likeness of God with unique gifts to bring to the world. Cristo Rey invites students to discover these truths about themselves and helps them develop and share their gifts. Through Cristo Rey’s unique model of corporate work study and college preparatory experiences, students are given the tools to dream and achieve ambitious goals for themselves and their communities,” stated Amanda Livermore, who has spent the past 14 months as Feasibility Study Director for the Orlando Cristo Rey leadership team. 

After an intense national search process, Cristo Rey Orlando High School Board Chair, Bill Orosz, expressed his gratitude to the Search Committee for their outstanding work in vetting numerous applicants – “As our Feasibility Study Director for the past 14 months, we have all had the opportunity to work closely with Amanda…she has proven herself to be an experienced, faithful, and influential leader.  We could not be more pleased with the decision of our Search Committee.”

 “Over the past year, we have seen incredible enthusiasm from the Orlando community to help build Cristo Rey for ambitious, under-resourced students,” Livermore shared. “Now, as the Founding President of Cristo Rey Orlando High School, I am committed to building a culture of truth, beauty, and goodness in which student wholeness is central. I welcome the opportunity to work with our experienced board of directors, faculty, staff, parents, students, corporate partners, and community members to provide an encouraging, safe, and transformational environment where all students have what they need to discover their God-given potential.”

Born and raised in Lakeland, FL, Livermore is a first-generation Cuban American who grew up surrounded by loving Cuban and Italian family. Livermore has spent much of her working career in the Catholic Diocese of Orlando – most recently as Vice President of Bishop Moore Catholic High School.  She is a graduate of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and earned her Master of Pastoral Studies from Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana.  She is the President of the Orlando Legatus Chapter, a board member of Young Catholic Professionals, a member of the University of Central Florida Catholic Campus Ministry Advisory Board, a member of Orlando Museum of Art Council of 101, and a parishioner of Annunciation Catholic Church in Longwood. She and her husband Jason are proud parents of Isabel (17) and Sammy (15).

The Cristo Rey Network® is the only network of high schools in the country that integrate four years of rigorous college preparatory academics with four years of professional work experience through the Corporate Work Study Program. Comprised of 38 Catholic, college- and career-preparatory schools that today serve 12,012 students across 22 states and collectively claim 25,505 graduates, the Cristo Rey Network delivers a powerful and innovative approach to education that equips students from families of limited economic means with the knowledge, character, and skills to transform their lives. The impact is evident: Cristo Rey students are three times more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree by age 24, compared to the total U.S. low-income population. Learn more at www.cristoreynetwork.org.

Founding President Search Committee

Russ Allinson, Chair

Margaret Curran

Ericka Dickerson

Brett Kenefick

Tadar Muhammad

Bill Orosz

Cheryl Weber


The selection process was facilitated by Meghan Post with PostHawk Consulting.