Celebrating 40 Years: Honoring Kathy Ligon’s Impact on Early Education
July 2026 marks HINGE Early Education Advisors Founder & CEO Kathy Ligon’s 40th year in the industry — a milestone representing four decades spent championing the owners who make childcare possible.
Kathy often shares that the point where talent and passion meet is a unique and meaningful life experience that brings great joy and success. For her, that meeting point began in 1986, when an opportunity to work in early education changed the course of her career, and ultimately, an industry.
Where It All Began
Kathy’s introduction to childcare came the way it does for so many: as a parent. A young accountant searching for care for her two-year-old daughter, she counted the little heads in her daughter’s class, multiplied by the $45 weekly tuition she was paying, and concluded the owners were making a fortune.
She learned that was far from the truth, and she has been telling that story ever since as a reminder of how little most people, even accountants, understand about the true economics of childcare.
A few years later, Kathy left public accounting to handle the financial work for the five-site early education company where her children attended school. She intended to stay only briefly, but instead found an industry full of purpose and people dedicating their lives to young children and families. She fell in love with the work, and over the next 17 years, she helped grow that company from five to 125 schools, advancing from finance to operations to growth. It was there she discovered the calling that would define her career. Meeting with owners ready to sell their schools, she learned to structure acquisitions that fulfilled sellers’ dreams while growing the company — and she saw firsthand how few resources existed to help educators navigate the business and financial side of their work.
Building HINGE Early Education Advisors
In 2003, Kathy founded HINGE Early Education Advisors to make a bigger difference for early education business owners, guiding them through the sale of their schools and real estate, and helping them exit at the value they deserve. In her own words, putting the “s” on “Advisors” was a glimpse into the future she hoped to create. For years, the team was just her. But as momentum picked up, that quickly changed.
Today, that vision has become a nationwide team serving early education owners across the country, a buyer network of more than 650 groups, and over $1 billion in value gained for clients. Along the way, Kathy has guided the firm and the owners it serves through economic downturns and a global pandemic, always returning to the same foundation of relationships, generosity with knowledge, and a belief in the people behind this industry.
That belief now reaches owners well beyond the transaction table, through educational webinars, speaking engagements, financial coaching and leadership training, and signature events like HINGE’s SHIFT Childcare Leaders Conference and VALUE Workshops. It also extends to the educators themselves — Kathy founded BOOST, a nonprofit dedicated to providing emergency grants and financial resources to early childhood educators facing financial hardship.
Here’s to What’s Next
Forty years in, Kathy’s commitment has never wavered. Economies shift and strategies evolve, but her promise to early education business owners remains the same. She will keep listening, creating, sharing, learning, and supporting them in their mission.
As Kathy puts it, “This industry that I love so dearly is stuck with me. They’re going to have to bury me out back.”
Few people have shaped the business of early education like Kathy Ligon. From all of us at HINGE, thank you for 40 years of leadership, heart, and advocacy. Here’s to everything still ahead!