Amy Parsons is the 16th President of Colorado State University. Prior to being named the President of Colorado State University, Parsons served in various senior executive leadership roles at CSU and the CSU System and combines her 17 years of higher education experience with a private sector background. Parsons was executive vice chancellor of the CSU System from 2015-2020; vice president for university operations at CSU from 2009-2015; deputy general counsel and associate legal counsel at CSU Fort Collins from 2004-2009. As vice president of operations at CSU, she helped navigate through the fiscal challenges of the Great Recession, supported the first comprehensive salary equity survey to uncover and remedy gender-based inequities, and oversaw an historic physical transformation that included construction and renovation of state-of-the-art classroom buildings, parking structures, research facilities, and an on-campus stadium. She worked as a litigation attorney for Denver-firm Brownstein, Hyatt, & Farber (now Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck) from 1999-2004.

Parsons holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from CSU and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Colorado. She was born in Colorado and grew up in Wyoming.