Nykia Wright is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of REALTORS®. Nykia brings a breadth of executive leadership and strategic advisory experience with her.
Prior to assuming the role in November of 2023, Nykia was the Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Sun-Times, the oldest continuously published news publication in the state of Illinois. As CEO of the Chicago Sun-Times, she led the newspaper through a sweeping digital transformation and a merger with WBEZ (Chicago Public Media). She is a recognized leader in the journalism industry who was responsible for managing significant disruption, driving change, and implementing digital transformation at the newspaper.
Before joining the Sun-Times, Nykia was a strategy and business transformation professional with more than 15 years’ experience advising and leading companies and teams for operational, financial, and performance improvement projects. Specific areas of expertise include planning for growth, operational turnarounds, launching global digital strategies, starting new business lines, and initiating organizational redesigns. Nykia has served as a strategic advisor to a number of institutes of higher learning including MIT, Duke, and Dartmouth College, and to Fortune 500 companies such as McDonald’s, Tyson Foods, and Toll Brothers.
Most recently, Nykia co-founded SonicMESSENGER, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup helping democratize audience engagement and measurement by leveraging smart audio. She sits on the board of the American Cancer Society and the Better Government Association, among other entities, and is a member of the Dean's Advisory Council at her alma mater, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She has received many awards for her success, including the 2022 YWCA Chicago – Outstanding Leader in Business, 2019’s Chicago’s most powerful women in journalism, and Chicago Crain’s 2018 40 under 40.
Nykia has a B.S. in Business Administration and Finance from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA in General Management and Strategy from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
