Jill Bella

Jill M. Bella, Ed.D., founder and president of Bella Mattina, provides consultation and training to local and state initiatives focused on leadership topics in early care and education. She holds a doctorate degree in Adult and Continuing Education from National Louis University (NLU), and both a graduate degree in Special Education—Early Intervention and a baccalaureate degree in Child Development from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Previously, Dr. Bella was Director of Professional Learning and an Assistant Professor at the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership at NLU for twenty-two years. In this role, she consulted on leadership initiatives, developed several assessment and evaluation tools, designed, delivered, and oversaw nationally recognized leadership academies and trainings, developed module content, and conducted research. Dr. Bella also worked as an early interventionist, training specialist, coach, and early educator. Her interests include early childhood leadership, organizational climate, the early childhood workforce, and systems thinking. She is co-author of the Program Administration Scale, Third Edition; A Great Place to Work; Building Whole Leadership; Inspiring Peak Performance; Zoom: The Impact of Early Childhood Leadership Training on Role Perceptions, Job Performance, and Career Decisions; the Administrator Role Perceptions Survey, several trainer’s guides in the Director’s Toolbox Management Series; and multiple articles.