Leatrice Bulls: Giving Back Through Passion

Leatrice Bulls has been skating since she was 4 years old. She has 16 competitive synchronized skating seasons under her belt in addition to a Harvard education and a job at one of the top consulting firms in the country. With an already impressive professional and skating resume, the Skyliners skater intentionally shapes her life around her passions and drive to leave the world a little better than she found it.

"I am currently a business technology solutions consultant at Deloitte," Bulls said. "I work with different clients on technology problems that they have. I'm really the bridge between the business side and the technical side to find solutions for our clients." 
  Bulls majored in mechanical engineering at Harvard University with a minor in computer science. Originally, Bulls aspired to be a robotics engineer but shifted gears after a summer working at Deloitte.

"I interned at Deloitte in the role I am in now and really liked it," Bulls said. "I appreciated that I could use my technical background in computer science and have conversations with technology people, but not be the person doing the coding or development. I knew that I wanted to be in the business space, but I liked the technology. My role is a happy medium where I get to be a bridge to both sides."

Despite a heavy course load in technical studies, Bulls credits a general education class for shaping the future trajectory of career.

"I took a class my junior year of college that changed my life," Bulls said. "It was called 'The American Education System, K-12.' They were very intentional about creating a cohort of students that came from very different education experiences. You have some people that went to ultra-prep boarding schools for most of their lives, but then I sat next to someone who went to a public high school in rural Kentucky and she had never had a textbook in her entire life.

"I learned a lot about myself in that class. I am a Black woman and there is a lot that comes with that, but I also had a lot of educational privilege with the educational opportunities that I had. The conversations that we had, the people I talked to, and the ways I was challenged to question my own assumptions and values in education completely changed what I wanted to do with my life. It made me realize that being in the education space is really important to me. Being a teacher was never going to be my path, but I could use technology to make an impact."

Bulls hopes to apply her unique educational background to create technology solutions for K-12 education. She believes that technology and the internet have the ability to close the opportunity gap in the current education system. She hopes to manage the production and design of technology products with inclusion at the focal point.

"Production inclusion work would combine some of my work on the Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Task Force at U.S. Figure Skating with my passion for education and love for technology," Bulls said. "The way we design products inherently intersects with DEI. When you design something, you design it with someone in mind, which makes it biased because then you are not designing it for someone else. I like thinking through how to design products for as many people as possible."

Much like her aspirations to make a difference in the education space, Bulls has gone above and beyond to give back to the sport she loves. In addition to her work as the co-chair of the DEI task force and a DREAM skater, Bulls was recently elected to the Athlete Advisory Committee and Synchronized Skating Development and Technical Committee.

"My love for the sport drives me to give back," said Bulls. "I have been involved in the sport for a very long time, and it has not always been easy to be Black in a space that does not have a lot of people that look like me. If I can do anything that can make it slightly easier for one other young athlete, it's worth it to me. I want everyone to be able to do what they love and not have to question if they belong based on one of their other identities. We all know and acknowledge that there is work to be done and I am really driven to be part of the change in the sport that I love."

With the demands that come with entering the working world, Bulls has been intentional about making space for the sport she loves – both on the ice with the Skyliners and behind the scenes with her work within the U.S. Figure Skating organization.

"It has been an interesting transition," Bulls said. "I have learned that skating is something that I value and it is bringing a lot of joy to my life. When you start working, it is common to lose the extracurricular activities that you did growing up. It has been great to create space for things that I love outside of work. There is a shift in my mind when I get onto the ice where nothing else matters. I can be in the worst mood, but when I step on the ice, I completely forget about it and just enjoy skating. There is something very freeing about being on the ice."

Whatever comes next in her professional and skating career, Bulls will lead with her passion to give back.

"I didn't always see people who looked like me represented in those spaces, so I am really happy to be a representative for a number of different groups - for Skyliners, for athletes who want to skate after college, for athletes who don't have the most linear path in the sport, and for Black athletes," said Bulls. "My hope is that anyone can show up, work hard, and enjoy the sport as much as I do if they so choose. When everyone feels included, it is better for everyone. The sport is able to grow and thrive the more inclusive it is."

True words for both the skating world and the future of education.