Buckley has served as an independent strategic consultant to nonprofits and health care companies, including Room to Read and the United Way Bay Area. Prior to working independently, she was a consultant at McKinsey & Co. in New York and San Francisco. She has also worked in investment banking at J.P. Morgan and at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in Washington, DC.

She serves as a trustee for Breakthrough Collaborative, a national nonprofit organization that puts low-income middle school students on the path to college and inspires college students to become educators.

Buckley received a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford University and a master's in public policy from Harvard University.