Nancy Deyo

Nancy Deyo is a former Silicon Valley CEO and Stanford University Distinguished Careers Institute Fellow whose career and identity were upended by chronic pain and disability. After a spinal injury on Mount Kilimanjaro, she spent fifteen years navigating chronic illness, opioid dependence, medical uncertainty, and identity collapse.

Once accustomed to a life of constant motion—leading a technology company and traveling the world—pain forced Nancy to live lying down, as the strategies that had defined her no longer worked. When medicine offered no clear answers, she explored everything from cutting-edge treatments to energy healers and shamans.

The turning point was not a cure, but a shift: learning to rebuild her life within the constraints of chronic pain. She returned to the world on new terms—attending graduate school lying on an army cot and eventually resuming travel and work the same way.

Today, Nancy writes and speaks about chronic pain, identity, and resilience. Her forthcoming memoir is Perilous Ascent.