Dr. Asa James Swan is the founder and CEO of GREAT Leaders, a dynamic leadership-focused organization dedicated to creating gritty, relational, equipped, authentic, and transformational (or GREAT) leaders through coaching, training, and consulting. Asa previously served as the first-ever Chief Leadership Officer (CLO) for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which was also the first in the nation, where he was responsible for leading comprehensive leadership training for emerging and established leaders at all levels across both the public and private sectors of Kentucky.

Asa previously served as the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Chief of Staff from 2015-2019 and Legislative Liaison from 2004-2007. Asa spent eight years as a history professor at Lindsey Wilson College, where he was twice elected Teacher of the Year by the student body. His career has also included service on the staffs of former Kentucky 2nd District U.S. Congressman Ron Lewis and the U.S. Senate Republican Conference.

After starting college fulltime at age 15, Asa’s peers elected him student body president at Lindsey Wilson College at age 16, making him the youngest student body president in the country at the time. After transferring to Huntington University in Indiana a year later, Asa was elected student body president twice, the sole two-term president in Huntington’s history and one of the only Americans to ever be elected student body president at two different colleges. Asa was also a Rhodes Scholar nominee and candidate his senior year at Huntington. He has a Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of Kentucky. Asa is married to Kentucky State Treasurer Allison Ball and father to their children, Levi and Marigold. Asa is a proud native of Campbellsville, Kentucky.