1. BrightChamps: The Window to Nextgen Skills

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  2. ASU+GSV Summit 2022

    April 4-6, 2022 in San Diego

Our Team

The sector’s preeminent collection of talent & experience—uniquely qualified to partner with, and to elevate, EdTech’s most important companies

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Investment Committee Investment Team Platform Team Advisory Board
Deborah Quazzo

Deborah Quazzo

Managing Partner San Francisco, CA & Chicago, IL

Deborah is the Managing Partner of GSV Ventures, a venture fund investing in education and workforce skills technologies that are disrupting the $7 Trillion global sector. The fund invests globally — primarily in the US and India. Deborah has been twice named to Insider’s list of top 100 seed investors. In addition, she is co-founder of the ASU+GSV Summit, the preeminent gathering of leaders in education and workforce skilling. Now in its 15th year, the ASU+GSV Summit celebrates innovations and innovators across the global “preK to Gray” learning and workforce skills landscape and attracts over 5,300 live and 10,000 virtual attendees.

Deborah’s current boards include Ascend Learning, BrightChamps, Class Technologies, CoLearn, Degreed, Disco, Dreamscape Learn, Ellucian, Mattilda, Physics Wallah, Simplilearn and Turnitin. She is a member of the boards of The Common Ground Foundation, New Profit, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and The Yidan Prize Foundation Advisory Committee.
Deborah graduated cum laude with a BA in history from Princeton University in 1982 and an MBA from Harvard University in 1987.

Adam Freed

Adam Freed

Managing Partner New York, NY

Adam Freed is a Managing Partner at GSV Ventures, an education- and workforce-focused venture firm investing in transformative learning companies across the Pre-K to Gray spectrum.

Adam has spent much of his career building businesses and leading teams in high growth companies.  He is current board chair and former CEO of Teachers Pay Teachers. TpT is the go-to site for educator-created materials. Adam helped grow the company to its current annual reach of more than 75% of all K-12 teachers in the US, Canada, and Australia.

Prior to TpT, Adam served as COO of artisanal goods purveyor Etsy. Adam also led International Product Management and International Sales Operations at Google — before, during, and after the company’s IPO.

Before joining the education and technology worlds, Adam was a TV reporter and anchor in both English and Japanese. He is the recipient of both a Knight Fellowship and a local TV Emmy for his work.

Adam loves helping other leaders develop and thrive.  He has a certificate in executive coaching from Columbia Teacher’s College and is a Pahara Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He got his undergraduate degree at Harvard in Linguistics and his master’s degree from Yale Law School.

A Brooklynite for the past decade, Adam serves on the board of the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and lives in the creative borough with his husband, Ken, their two children, and their dog, Kiki. Adam also speaks 11 languages, including Spanish, Finnish, Turkish, and Japanese. He has lived in 11 locales in five countries around the world.

Adam is on Twitter as @adamfreed or Instagram as @freedagram.  You can also email him via www.adamjfreed.com.

Michael Cohn

Michael Cohn

Co-Founder & Partner Chicago, IL & San Francisco, CA

Michael Cohn is Partner and founding member at GSV Ventures. He began working with GSV in 2011 and co-founded GSV Ventures in 2016. Michael sits on the boards of BEGIN, Quillbot, Lightneer, and Toucan, and is a board observer at Photomath, Class Technologies, Degreed, Remind, Valenture Institute, Intellispark, and Stride Funding. He helped lead fundraising efforts for both GSV Ventures’ institutional funds, closing on $97M and $180M, respectively. Michael’s responsibilities include fund management for GSV, investment prospect generation, investment structuring and execution, capital raising, due diligence of potential acquisitions, and oversight of the Firm’s finance function.

Prior to GSV Ventures, Michael was a Managing Director at GSV Advisors, co-managing an angel portfolio of 50 learning and talent technology companies and scaling the ASU+ GSV Summit, an annual event now in its 12th year, with over 15,000 in attendees, that celebrates innovators across the global “PreK to Gray” digital learning and skills landscape.

Michael holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) and a BBA from the University of Michigan. He currently lives in Chicago with his wife Shawna and their sons Taylor and Hayden.

Luben Pampoulov

Luben Pampoulov

Partner Paris, France
Luben Pampoulov is Partner at GSV Ventures and co-founder and Partner at GSV Asset Management. Luben brings strong experience as a growth investor in Consumer Technology and Edtech, having led GSV’s early investments in Coursera, Photomath, Spotify, Lyft, Snap and Dropbox. Prior to co-founding GSV, Luben was an Investment Analyst at San Francisco-based investment bank ThinkEquity Partners. Luben currently serves as a member of the Investment Committee of the ATP Tour, the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuit.

Luben has a multinational background from Europe and the U.S. and offers a unique perspective on global markets. His professional credentials are complemented by his achievements as a professional tennis player on the ATP Tour, and with leading UCLA as its Captain and No. 1 player to win the 2005 NCAA Championship. Luben graduated with a BA in Economics and International Studies from UCLA.
Jason Horne

Jason Horne

Partner New York, NY

Jason Horne is a Managing Director at GSV Ventures based in New York City. Prior to GSV Ventures Jason led Corporate Development for London-based TES Global, then backed by TPG Capital. Jason also has 8+ years of investment banking experience across GSV Advisors and Deloitte Corporate Finance, where he advised on a wide range of transactions across the PreK-12, Higher Ed, and enterprise learning and talent continuum.

Michael Moe

Michael Moe

Advisor Woodside, CA
Michael Moe is the Founder and CEO of GSV, a growth-focused investment platform. GSV has invested in game-changing businesses such as Facebook, Twitter, Snap, Palantir and Spotify. GSV has several funds focused on the digital learning sector and has invested in Coursera, Chegg, Course Hero, Masterclass, and Guild Education. GSV stands for “Global Silicon Valley,” inspired by the entrepreneurial mindset of Silicon Valley spreading throughout the world.
Michael is also the co-founder of the ASU+GSV Summit, which Forbes called “the Davos of Education.” Additionally, Michael is on the Board of the National Football Foundation and the College Football Hall of Fame, Center for Education Reform, ClassDojo, Bookclub, FatBrain, Hi Solutions, and is an advisor to Arizona State University.

Before GSV, Michael was the Founder and CEO of ThinkEquity Partners, Head of Global Growth Research at Merrill Lynch, and was voted to be on the Institutional All American Research Team and named “Best on the Street” by the Wall Street Journal.
Michael is the author of three books, “Finding the Next Starbucks”, “the Global Silicon Valley Handbook” and his most recent, “The Mission Corporation.”
Michael holds a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from the University of Minnesota and is a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst). He and his wife Bonnie live in Dallas, Texas where they moved to in 2021 after living in Silicon Valley for twenty-five years.
Mujtaba Wani

Mujtaba Wani

Principal New York, NY

Mujtaba is a Principal at GSV Ventures. Prior to joining the firm, he spent three years with BlackRock’s private equity group, where he helped invest in companies including Rivian, Morphe, Cotiviti, and Asurion. Mujtaba graduated from Yale University in 2017 with a B.A. in Humanities. At Yale, he co-led the Dwight Hall Socially Responsible Investment Fund and was a Fellow with the Life Worth Living Program.

Kevin Zhang

Kevin Zhang

Principal San Francisco, CA

Kevin is a Principal at GSV Ventures based in San Francisco. Prior to joining the GSV team, he spent four years as a management consultant at Bain & Company, where he worked with clients in a variety of sectors including consumer products, technology, education non-profit, and private equity. Prior to Bain, he led a financial turnaround of The Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation as the COO and General Manager.

Kevin is a 2015 graduate of Princeton University, where he earned an A.B. in Philosophy and was a member of the water polo team.

Claire Zau

Claire Zau

Vice President New York, NY

Claire is a Vice President on the GSV Ventures team based in New York City. She previously worked across both the GSV Ventures investment team and ASU+GSV Summit team, where she collaborated with thought leaders across the edtech ecosystem to develop program and thought leadership. She graduated from Stanford University in 2019 and received her Master’s from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education in 2020. At Penn, Claire was a Venture Fellow at Red & Blue Ventures and interned at Penn’s education accelerator Catalyst. She has previous work experience in tech (strategy and product) and finance (private equity and venture capital).

Alexandra Argo

Alexandra Argo

Vice President San Francisco, CA

Alex is an investor at GSV Ventures. Prior to joining the firm, she worked on the Strategy & Corporate Development team at Chegg where she was responsible for developing and implementing strategic initiatives, as well as finding and executing M&A opportunities. Prior to her time at Chegg, she worked as an Investment Banking analyst at Morgan Stanley on the Financial Sponsors team.

Alex graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 2019 with an A.B. in Economics and was captain of the varsity women’s lacrosse team. She is passionate about mentorship and coaching, currently volunteering as a mentor for SF Education Fund and coaching youth lacrosse in San Francisco. Alex is originally from Baltimore, Maryland.

Raymond Kattoula

Raymond Kattoula

Investment Associate

Raymond is an Associate at GSV Ventures based in Chicago. Prior to joining the GSV team, he spent three years as a consultant at EY-Parthenon, where he worked primarily on corporate strategy engagements and commercial due diligences with private equity clients. Raymond’s experience spans multiple sectors, with an emphasis on education technology. Raymond graduated with high honors from Michigan State University with a degree in Finance and Computational STEM. Since his time in college, he’s remained involved in programs providing mentorship opportunities to first-generation college students and graduates of Detroit Public Schools.

Francis Rosenberg

Francis Rosenberg

Associate Investor Chicago, IL

Francis is a Chicago-based associate at GSV Ventures. Prior to joining the firm, he worked at Allstate where he held roles in Technology Strategy, Digital Product Management and Corporate Venture. At Allstate Strategic Ventures, he led coverage of the FinTech/InsurTech space. He is also a member of the Executive Board of the Associate Board at Youth Guidance.

Francis was born and raised in Chicago and is a 2018 graduate of Brown University. He earned a B.A. in History and was one of the captains of the Men’s Rugby team, earning Academic All-Ivy honors three times.

Tiffany Taylor

Tiffany Taylor

Chief People & Impact Officer Chicago, IL & Detroit, MI

Tiffany Taylor is a passionate, accomplished, and results-driven professional with nearly 20 years of experience in the education, non-profit, and public sector. She most recently served as the Executive Director of Teach For America–Detroit where she set a compelling vision and direction for the region, expanded the national and regional fundraising base, and ran a sophisticated and sustainable operation. Tiffany later supported TFA’s 51 regions across the country as the Deputy Chief People Officer.

After joining TFA in 2004 as a sixth-grade special education teacher, Tiffany deepened her understanding of issues affecting underrepresented communities through her work as education policy consultant and affordable housing developer in our nation’s capital.

She has won numerous awards, including Michigan Chronicle’s 2014 40 under 40 class, honoring her as an “Everyday She-roe”, as well as the “Five Under Ten” Young Alumni Recognition Award from the University of Michigan African American Alumni Council. She was inducted into the Crain’s 2015 40 under 40 class and named a 2018 Woman of Impact by the Joyce Ivy Foundation. In 2019 the Walker’s Legacy Foundation honored Tiffany with the national “Women in Economic Development and Civic Leadership” award because of her work to champion policy and programs to advance economic development, entrepreneurship ecosystems, job opportunities, and innovation in education in her community.

Tiffany graduated from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Afro-American and African Studies. She also earned a Master’s degree in education from St. Joseph’s University and a Masters’ degree in Urban Planning from the University of Maryland with a concentration in Economic Development and Real Estate Development. Most recently, Tiffany completed the Leading Change and Organizational Renewal program at Harvard Business School.

Michelle Bakalis

Michelle Bakalis

Senior Executive Assistant Detroit, MI

Michelle Bakalis is Senior Executive Assistant to GSV Ventures Managing Partner and Co-founder of the ASU+GSV Summit, Deborah Quazzo. Michelle began working with GSV in Chicago in October 2012.

Prior to joining GSV, she worked at CBS Paramount in Los Angeles as an Associate Producer where her key responsibilities included writing and producing segments for branded clients, managing key client relationships, and coordinating with on-air talent.

Michelle graduated from DePaul University with a B.A. in Communications, concentration in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Sales Leadership and Marketing. She is currently based in Detroit.

Jessica Crabbe

Jessica Crabbe

Vice President, Marketing

Jessica leads performance marketing and execution at GSV. In her role she supports content optimization, audience development, and customer acquisition.

Jessica is a Texas native with ten years of experience in digital marketing and communications. In her former role at South by Southwest as the SXSW EDU Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Jessica oversaw strategic initiatives and campaigns for the brand across all digital platforms.

Early in her career, she honed a knack for writing and storytelling working as both a reporter and photographer for several local newspapers in south-central Texas.

Jessica is a first-generation college graduate with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Western Governors University and a B.A. in Mass Communications-Electronic Media, with a minor in Photography from Texas State University. Her passion is connecting people to innovative solutions and ideas that have an impact.

Abbey Prior

Abbey Prior

Vice President, Operations

Abbey is the Director of People & Impact at GSV, and brings 16 years of experience and commitment to pursuing equitable access to education across the globe to our GSV family. She began this work teaching middle school special education in Brooklyn, NY with Teach For America and then joined staff where she worked in campus recruitment, strategic talent acquisition, learning and development and people work. For the last 8 years, Abbey has also supported the learning and growth of educators across the globe with Teach For All’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team. She has experience designing diversity, equity and inclusion resources and engagements for CEO and staff across the globe. Most recently, Abbey helped lead people work as a Chief of Staff on TFA’s HR team and served a strategic thought partner for senior leadership in service of stewarding team wide vision and strategies.

Abbey earned her M. Ed. from PACE University School of Education, and her B.A. from Boston College. She lives in Portland, Maine with her son, partner and dog.

Emily Boyd

Emily Boyd

Senior Brand Designer

Emily is a Senior Brand Designer at GSV Ventures and ASU+GSV Summit. Prior to joining the GSV team, she led brand design at Tango. During her time there, she worked closely with the Marketing and Brand Strategy teams to craft the visual identity and overall experience of the brand across marketing touchpoints. She has spent the last 8+ years executing strategic creative solutions across the tech sector, with a focus on visual design, web design and brand management. Emily currently resides in the Boston area with her husband. She enjoys traveling, cooking, and spending time with her two dogs, Bunker and Birdie.

Megan Timpf

Megan Timpf

Director of People & Impact

Megan is the Director of People and Impact at GSV. She is passionately dedicated to supporting individuals, building cohesive teams, and nurturing inclusive cultures. Before joining GSV, Megan spent six years on the People Ops Team at Teachers Pay Teachers where she oversaw programming and employee experience. Prior to that, she devoted a decade to coaching softball at the NCAA Division I and Division II levels.

Megan’s passion for team building and deep understanding of the dynamics of teamwork stem from her days as a high-performing athlete. She was a mainstay on Canada’s National Softball team for over ten years, serving as Team Captain, earning a Gold medal at the 2015 Pan Am Games, and representing Canada at the 2008 Olympics.

Megan is SHRM-CP certified, graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from California University of PA, and earned a Master’s degree in Sport Management from Indiana University of PA. In her free time, you can find Megan chasing the next family adventure, listening to podcasts, and exploring the outdoors. She resides in Maplewood, NJ, with her wife, Erica, and their two sons, Lenox and Kingston.

 

Cynthia Hamilton

Cynthia Hamilton

Senior Executive Assistant

Cynthia is a senior executive assistant and works alongside Michelle in support of Deborah and the broader team. Prior to joining GSV, Cynthia was the executive assistant to the CEO of the Prado Group, a Real Estate Development firm in San Francisco, California. She brings with her over 20 years supporting executives in industries such as Venture Capital, Insurance, and Investment Banking. She has a passion for partnering with executives to keep them focused and organized.

Cynthia volunteers for PAWS Chicago as a trainer and dog walker for adoptable dogs, and has a deaf Boston Terrier, Bentley. She is a big sports fan and in her spare time, plays competitive tennis, paddle tennis and is learning pickleball.

Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan

Managing Partner, Emerson Collective; former U.S. Secretary of Education Chicago, IL

Arne Duncan served as U.S. Secretary of Education from January 2009 through December 2015 as part of the Obama Administration. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Duncan served as chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools. From 2001 to 2008, Duncan won praise for uniting the city’s stakeholders behind an education agenda that included opening 100 new schools; expanding after-school, summer learning, early childhood, and college access programs; dramatically boosting the caliber of teachers; and building public-private partnerships around a variety of education initiatives.

He currently leads Chicago CRED, a nonprofit trying to achieve a transformative reduction in gun violence in Chicago. Through partnerships with local business leaders, community organizers, and nonprofit groups, Duncan aims to provide outreach, therapeutic, education, and employment opportunities for the young men most likely to be engaged in gun violence. He is also the managing partner at Emerson Collective, an organization dedicated to removing barriers so people can live to their full potential. Secretary Duncan graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1987, majoring in sociology. At Harvard he served as co-captain of the basketball team and was named a first team Academic All-American.

Duncan serves on the boards of: Ariel Capital Management, Aspen Institute, Communities in Schools, Lucas Museum, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, National Association of Basketball Coaches, Ring Central and Thrive-Chicago. He also serves as Co-chair of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

Louise Rogers

Louise Rogers

Chair, NED, Investor and Industrialist London, UK

Louise is an experienced digital, business and board leader with a 25-year track record in Private Equity-backed, Corporate, and Venture Capital businesses both in Europe and the US.  She has extensive PE board experience with Exponent, Tenzing Charterhouse , Oakley Capital, TPG and Montagu . Louise has a significant reputation for working with senior leaders who are translating complex digital-change problems into transformational operational plans. She is known for strong strategic Board leadership and effective management support, resulting in significant revenue, product and profit growth, plus exit multiple enhancement.

Louise is driven by a highly customer-focused approach – with emphasis on establishing strong cultural drivers within an organisation to help achieve significant global growth. She has experience across multiple industries, but mainly focuses on Education (B2B, B2C, Higher Education, K12, Workplace learning), Digital Classified and Media. She has extensive experience of different Private Equity/Venture Capital requirements, having successfully worked for very different PE and VC houses – leading M&A, strategic review, competitive analysis, restructuring and full-process exits, plus raising funds through all rounds plus financial restructure, senior leveraged finance and public bonds.

David Blake

David Blake

Founder & Executive Chairman, Degreed

David Blake is the founder and executive chairman at Degreed. Degreed’s mission is to “jailbreak the degree” by helping people and companies answer for all learning and skills, not just formal education. Degreed helps individuals track all of their academic, professional, and informal learning, and then uses that information to match each learner with the best learning resources in the world: courses, trainings, professional certificates, conferences, articles, etc. Degreed helps organizations see the skills and learning of their employees, teams, & company, helping employees and managers set goals, track their learning, and certify the skills gained.

Prior to founding Degreed, David worked as a consultant at New Charter University, A competency-based university, mission-driven to provide affordable access to higher education, and also as a management consulting at Oliver Wyman.

David is not new to the world of startups and investing, having been part of the founding team at Zinch, acquired by Chegg. Zinch sought to connect students with opportunities by showcasing them as “more than test scores.” David has experience working in the EdTech Entrepreneurs Lab, part of the NewSchools Venture Fund, seeking to address the education achievement gap between students from low and high-income communities.

Harriet Seitler

Harriet Seitler

Chief Brand Officer, Course Hero Chicago, IL

Harriet Seitler is Chief Brand Officer at Course Hero, where she oversees communications, brand and growth marketing, and educator partnerships and has built brand programs from Student Hero Scholarships to the Dear Class of 2020 Michelle Obama virtual graduation partnership.

Harriet’s career spans 25 years as Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer at Harpo Studios and then OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. An Emmy award winning brand leader, Seitler wrote the iconic “Live Your Best Life” tagline. Harriet oversaw some of the most historic programs in “Oprah” history, including the ChristmasKindess South Africa tour and the finale season’s Ultimate Viewer Australian Adventure. She led Oprah.com, podcasts, e-coursework, and live events.

Prior to Oprah, Harriet was VP of marketing at ESPN and senior vice president at MTV.

She serves as a Board member of Leap Innovations, a personalized learning and opportunity platform; Whalar Inc., a creator marketing company, and is a partner in Bistro LLC, a seed investor boutique.

Michael Sorrell

Michael Sorrell

President, Paul Quinn College

Dr. Michael J. Sorrell is President of Paul Quinn College. During his 13 years of leadership, Paul Quinn has become a national movement for its efforts to remake higher education in order to serve the needs of under-resourced students and communities.

Michael received his J.D. and M.A. in Public Policy from Duke University and his Ed.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (where his dissertation defense was awarded “with Distinction”). While in law school, he was one of the founding members of the Journal of Gender Law & Policy and served as the Vice President of the Duke Bar Association. Michael was a recipient of a Sloan Foundation Graduate Fellowship, which funded his studies at both Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (as a graduate fellow) and Duke University. He graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in Government, served as Secretary-Treasurer of his senior class, was a two-time captain of the men’s varsity basketball team, and graduated as the school’s fifth all-time leading scorer.

Among the entities that President Sorrell serves as a trustee or director for are Duke University’s School of Law, the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, JP Morgan Chase’s Advancing Black Pathways, Amegy Bank, the Hockaday School, the Dallas Advisory Board of Teach for America, the Dallas Foundation, and EarthX.

Michael is a member of the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity and a life member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

Mike Smith

Mike Smith

Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard University Boston, MA

Mike Smith is the past Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and is currently a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. Mike joined Harvard’s Computer Science department in 1992, and served as FAS Dean from 2007 through late 2018. During his tenure, he recruited the most diverse group of world-class faculty in FAS history, and created the Dean’s Faculty Resources Committee in 2016 to support these strategic efforts. He was actively involved in Harvard and MIT’s launch of edX, and he served on its board from 2012-2018. In addition, Mike implemented a tenure track process, and established the Dean’s competitive Fund for Promising Scholarship, seeking to assist professors doing experimental and forward-leaning work.

Mike holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, along with a B.A. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from WPI.

Julia Stiglitz

Julia Stiglitz

Previously Partner, GSV Ventures San Francisco, CA

Julia brings an extraordinary breadth of “PreK to Gray” education and workforce innovation insights to the GSV Ventures Advisory Board. Prior to her years as Partner at GSV Ventures, Julia was VP at Coursera, where she started and scaled Coursera’s enterprise business sector, Coursera’s fastest growing business line. Julia was Coursera’s first business hire, leading its early work around monetization and global expansion. Her previous experience includes managing the Google Apps for Education team, being a Program Director for Teach for America, and teaching 4th grade in East San Jose.

Julia has a BA from Pomona, and an MBA and MA in education from Stanford University. She is based in San Francisco.

Sergey Karayev

Sergey Karayev

Partner and Co-Founder of Volition

Sergey Karayev builds AI-powered software as Co-Founder of Volition, a new product studio.

Sergey previously co-founded Gradescope, which enabled instructors to grade paper-based exams, online homework, and programming projects on one platform, with AI assistance. Gradescope was acquired by Turnitin, where Sergey led development of AI for STEM.

Sergey has organized several popular courses taught online and at top universities such as UC Berkeley. These include Full Stack Deep Learning, which helps people go from a promising ML experiment to a shipped product, and Research to Startup, which helps CS PhD students explore the startup path.

Sergey holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley where he worked on deep learning for object recognition. He is originally from Russia and currently lives in Seattle.

Rick Levin

Rick Levin

CEO, Coursera; previously President, Yale University

Rick Levin is an internet executive, academic leader, and board level advisor with over 40 years of experience. He served as CEO of until June 2017, and he remains a Senior Adviser.  Previous, Rick was President of Yale University for a twenty-year term. He led the rebuilding and expansion of the Yale campus, redeveloped downtown New Haven, created scores of new international programs, and launched Yale’s early efforts in online education. Before taking over as President, he was a professor of economics.

Rick serves on a variety of public service, corporate, advisory and non-profit boards. He also served on President George Bush’s Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the U.S. Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, President Obama’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology, and he co-founded the World Economic Forum’s Global University Leaders Forum.  Ten members of his team at Yale went on to college or university presidencies.

Rick has deep experience in board management, governance, leadership development, general management, fundraising, and international relations.  His research in economics focused on industrial research and development, intellectual property, regulation, and antitrust.

Jessie Woolley-Wilson

Jessie Woolley-Wilson

President and CEO of DreamBox Learning

Jessie Woolley-Wilson is President and CEO of DreamBox Learning®. Prior to joining DreamBox, Jessie held executive positions at multiple leading EdTech companies, including Blackboard, LeapFrog, and Kaplan.

Jessie is a two-time recipient of EdTech Digest’s “EdTech Leadership Award” for her work in transformative innovation in education, and she has been named a “Top 100 Influencers in EdTech.” Forbes placed her on its “Impact 15” list for being a disruptor in education, and The New York Times featured Jessie in its Corner Office column.

Regionally, Jessie has received many accolades, including Seattle Business Magazine’s Executive Excellence Award in the “CEO of the Year” category, GeekWire’s “Big Tech CEO of the Year” award, Puget Sound Business Journal’s “Women of Influence” and “Innovator of the Year” awards, and the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur Of The Year®” award in the Pacific Northwest region.

She has served on several boards, including Quizlet, Rosetta Stone, and the Western Governors University Board of Trustees. She has been a featured speaker at many events, including TEDx Rainier, SXSWedu, DENT, GeekWire Summit, and the ASU GSV Summit.

Jessie holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from the University of Virginia.

Jessica Lindl

Jessica Lindl

Global Head of Education, Unity Technologies

Jessica is the Global Head of Education at Unity Technologies. Jessica has a strong marketing and product management background from her time at Riverdeep, a subsidiary of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and at Scientific Learning.

Jessica gained executive experience as the CEO of GlassLab, Inc., an online portal for educational games, followed by her tenure as COO of LRNG by Collective Shift, which seeks to redesign learning for the connected age so that all youth have an opportunity to succeed. Jessica joined Unity in May 2017 where she works on the cutting edge of technology and gaming development for their learning and education business.

In addition to sitting on the GSV Strategic Advisory Board, Jessica is a Pahara-Aspen Fellow and is an advisory board member for California State University.

Stefan Von Holtzbrink

Stefan Von Holtzbrink

Co-Owner, Chairman and CEO, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group Stuttgart, Germany

Stefan von Holtzbrinck is CEO of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group since 2001 and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Springer Nature since 2015. Holtzbrinck Publishing Group is a family-owned German holding company with broad interests in research communication (Springer Nature), educational course systems (Macmillan Learning), consumer books (Macmillan Publishers) and technology start-ups (Digital Science, HV Capital). It has ownership and stakes in over 300 Internet companies and funds around the world like Insight Partners, GSV Acceleration, Smash Capital, Founders Factory Europe, 468 Capital, Frontiers, BtoV, Dimensions, Symplectic, ifi Claims, figshare, labguru, Smash, Altmetric, AMBOSS et al. The group also runs such companies as Scientific American, St. Martin’s Press, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Picador, S. Fischer Verlage, Rowohlt Verlag and Die ZEIT.

Von Holtzbrinck studied Law and German Literature and received a PhD in Media Law from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. He held positions at Bloomsbury, Kirch Media Group and the New Media division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. He was Managing Director of Nature Publishing Group and Director of Macmillan.

In addition, von Holtzbrinck is member of the Max Planck Society, Chairman of the Max Planck Foundation, Vice Chairman of the American Academy in Berlin, Vice Chairman of the Business and Industry Advisory Board of the Goethe Institute as well as Chairman of the Stuttgart Children’s Foundation.

Scott Kinney

Scott Kinney

Managing Director in Education Technology, Devonshire Investors

Scott Kinney is the Managing Director in Education Technology at Devonshire Investors where their investment ideology is to invest in technology businesses that are committed to making our education system more effective, more accessible, and more affordable. Scott is passionate about leading and supporting innovation in education at all levels with the primary objective of helping more individuals achieve their educational and career goals as efficiently and affordably as possible.

While president of Capella University, Scott led efforts to develop new and innovative ways of offering high quality higher education that better serve both students and employers. Prior to joining Capella, Scott served as president of West Education Group at Thomson Reuters Corporation, where he led a group of five businesses providing legal education products and services to academic and legal professional customers around the world. Scott’s experience lies across a variety of industries, with an emphasis on technology and information-driven businesses.

Phyllis Lockett

Phyllis Lockett

Founder & CEO, LEAP Innovations

Phyllis Lockett is a serial social entrepreneur who has led transformation efforts in education, government and the civic arena. Ms. Lockett is currently the founder and CEO of LEAP Innovations, an organization headquartered in Chicago that works with schools to catalyze and ignite education innovation and prepare students for the changing world of work. As the president and CEO of New Schools for Chicago, she helped raise more than $70 million to support opening 80 new public schools. Ms. Lockett serves on the Board of Directors for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), CME Group and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago. She is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute and a member of the Economic Club of Chicago. Recently, Phyllis was named a contributor to Forbes, where she writes about education innovation and the future of learning.

Elijah Mayfield

Elijah Mayfield

Entrepreneur in Residence, Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science; previously CEO, LightSide Labs Pittsburgh, PA

Elijah Mayfield completed his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon in Language Technologies, where he serves as the Entrepreneur in Residence to the school of computer science. Prior to returning to Carnegie Mellon, Elijah launched and served as CEO of LightSide Labs, a divergence from his Ph.D. research in natural language processing and machine learning. The startup received grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation before being acquired by Turnitin in October 2014. Elijah joined Turnitin as the Vice President of New Technologies, where he spearheaded the release of Revision Assistant, a machine-learning based edtech product.

Elijah has spent time as a policy consultant for both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and joined the GSV Strategic Advisory Board in September 2018.

 

Anurima Bhargava

Anurima Bhargava

Founder & Director, Anthem of Us

Anurima Bhargava is the Founder and Director of Anthem of Us, a strategic advisory and consulting firm that promotes dignity and justice, and centers equity and belonging, in workplaces, schools, and communities. Anthem of Us works in collective with multiple partners to advise foundations, media and arts organizations, civil and human rights organizations, schools and companies.
Bhargava chaired and continues to serve on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. She was appointed to the Commission in December 2018 by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and has traveled to Burma, the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, Iraq, Sudan, and Vietnam to document and monitor religious conditions.

Bhargava led federal civil rights enforcement and policy in schools and institutions of higher education at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration. She served on several administration-wide and White House task forces to address racial and sexual violence, diversity, discipline, harassment and discrimination.

Before joining the Justice Department, she directed the education practice at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where she litigated cases on diversity, equity and segregation in schools and institutions of higher education, including in the federal appellate courts and U.S. Supreme Court.

From 2016-2018, she served as a fellow at the Institute of Politics and the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard, and as the inaugural Leadership in Government Fellow at Open Society Foundations, where her work focused on trauma experienced within communities after incidents of racial violence.

Bhargava is deeply committed to advancing justice through narrative and storytelling. She advises and produces documentary films and projects, and chairs the U.S. Board of Doc Society, a leading incubator and supporter of documentary film globally.

Bhargava serves as an advisor to Unbound Philantropy, Whiteboard and the Broadway Advocacy Coalition. She co-chairs the National Advisory Board on Public Service at Harvard and serves on the boards of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund and Poverty Race Research Action Council. She is a 2017 Presidential Leadership Scholar and has been a member of the Truman National Security Project and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lastly, Bhargava advises numerous political campaigns and was appointed to the 2020 DNC Platform Committee. She founded Take Back Tuesdays and Anthem of America to provide information and ways to take action around elections, and recently co-founded a multiracial PAC, American Anthem.

Ms. Bhargava earned her law degree from Columbia Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College. She was born and raised on the south side of Chicago.

Marguerite Kondracke

Marguerite Kondracke

Advisor

During her 40-year career, Marguerite Kondracke has held leadership positions in the private, public and non-profit sectors, always with a focus on education. She was co-founder and today is a director emeritus of Bright Horizons (BFAM). She was also CEO of a turnaround company in youth behavioral health and a roll-up in the corporate training space. In the public sector, she served in the Tennessee state cabinet as Commissioner of Human Services and later in the U. S. Senate as Staff Director of the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families. Finally, she served as CEO of America’s Promise, a national alliance of 300 organizations, founded by the late Colin Powell to make children and youth more of a national priority.

Public company boards she served on include LifePoint Health, Saks Fifth Avenue, Rosetta Stone, and MagnaTek. She has also served on several private company as well as non-profit boards, including IslandWood (environmental science education), the Innovation Lab at the University of Washington, Teach for America’s advisory board, and the EarthJustice National Council. She was also on the board of the Ladies Professional Golf Association for ten years and chaired the board for three.

An alumna of Duke University, she served for 12 years as a Duke trustee. She is married to award-winning political journalist Morton Kondracke. They now live on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, enjoying golf and travel and spending time with their grandchildren.

Kaya Henderson

Kaya Henderson

CEO of Reconstruction New York, NY

Kaya Henderson is the CEO of Reconstruction, a technology company delivering a K-12 supplemental curriculum that situates Black people, culture, and contributions in an authentic, identity-affirming way, so that students of all backgrounds benefit from a more complete understanding of our shared history and society.

She is also the co-host of Pod Save the People, and leads Kaya Henderson Consulting. She is perhaps best known for serving as Chancellor of DC Public Schools from 2010-2016. Her tenure was marked by consecutive years of enrollment growth, an increase in graduation rates, improvements in student satisfaction and teacher retention, increases in AP participation and pass rates, and the greatest growth of any urban district on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) over multiple years.

Kaya’s career began as a middle school Spanish teacher in the South Bronx, through Teach For America. She went on to work as a recruiter, national admissions director, and DC Executive Director for Teach for America. Henderson then served as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at The New Teacher Project (TNTP) until she began her tenure at DCPS as Deputy Chancellor in 2007. She most recently led the Global Learning Lab for Community Impact at Teach For All, supporting educators in more than 50 countries.

A native of Mt. Vernon, NY, Kaya graduated from Mt. Vernon Public Schools. She received her Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and her Master of Arts in Leadership from Georgetown University, as well as honorary doctoral degrees from Georgetown and Trinity University. Her board memberships include The Aspen Institute, Curriculum Associates, Robin Hood NYC, and Teach For America, and she is the co-founder of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC).

Steve Youngwood

Steve Youngwood

CEO of Sesame Workshop New York, NY

Steve Youngwood is CEO of Sesame Workshop, the media and education nonprofit behind Sesame Street and many more award-winning programs. He directs the Workshop’s efforts to deliver critical early learning through media and targeted social impact initiatives that help children and families around the world navigate complex and pressing challenges. Under Youngwood’s leadership, the Workshop has seen dramatic growth in its commercial and philanthropic efforts; greatly expanded the number of shows and other content; grown its humanitarian support work; entered the school curriculum market; increased licensing and themed entertainment efforts; expanded globally in China, Japan, Latin America, South Africa, the Middle East, and beyond; and grown Sesame Ventures, investing in and supporting mission-aligned start-ups.

Youngwood has 25+ years’ experience as a senior executive working to advance businesses at the intersection of media, content, and technology, including as President of Media & Education and COO at Sesame Workshop and as Executive VP & General Manager of Digital Media & Entertainment Products at Nickelodeon/Viacom. He was also a management consultant for McKinsey and Co. and worked at Disney Education Publishing. Previously, he was a Board Member at Leapfrog Enterprises (NYSE) and Learning Resources. He holds a BA in History from Yale and an MBA from Stanford, is an Advisory Board Member at GSV Ventures, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the Board of Directors at BEGIN and the nonprofit Northside Center for Development. He lives in New York City with his wife and three kids.

Michael Horn

Michael Horn

Author, Cofounder, Clayton Christensen Institute Lexington, MA

Michael B. Horn strives to create a world in which all individuals can build their passions and fulfill their potential through his writing, speaking, and work with a portfolio of education organizations. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns; Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools; Choosing College; Goodnight Box, a children’s story; and the forthcoming From Reopen to Reinvent: (Re)creating School for Every Child, which will be released in July 2022.

Michael is the co-founder of and a distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, a non-profit think tank. He cohosts the top education podcasts Future U and Class Disrupted. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and writes the Substack newsletter The Future of Education. Michael also serves as an executive editor at Education Next, and his work has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, and NBC.

Michael is a senior strategist at Guild Education, which partners with leading employers and organizations to help offer education and upskilling opportunities to America’s workforce. He serves on the board and advisory boards of a range of education organizations, including Imagine Worldwide, Minerva University, and the LearnLaunch Institute and is a venture partner at NextGen Venture Partners.

Michael was selected as a 2014 Eisenhower Fellow to study innovation in education in Vietnam and Korea, and Tech&Learning magazine named him to its list of the 100 most important people in the creation and advancement of the use of technology in education. Michael holds a BA in history from Yale University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Joy Chen

Joy Chen

Senior Advisor, GSV

Joy Chen is a senior advisor at GSV Venturess. She is also a board director of EHL Group in Switzerland, under which there is EHL, a hospitality management school which has been consistently regarded as the best hospitality school in the world.Joy previously was TAL’s U.S. Chief Investment Officer, supporting TAL in its overseas M&A and investments, business development and strategic partnerships. Before that, Joy was an entrepreneur. She founded FirstLeap Future Leaders Institute, an education company acquired by TAL in 2015. Earlier in her career, she worked for Ernst & Young, Microsoft and Verizon.Joy is passionate in inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs. and is actively involved in the entrepreneur community. Joy is an advisor for Berkeley SkyDeck, a high-tech entrepreneurship startup accelerator and incubator program at UC Berkeley. She is also the Silicon Valley Local Leader and advisor at Founder Institute, which is the world’s premier idea-stage accelerator and startup launch program based in the Silicon Valley. Joy received her master’s degree from the Indiana University School of Education. She is also an alumnus of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she attended the Stanford Executive Program of year 2015. Now Joy is a doctoral candidate at USC’s Global Executive Doctor of Education program. Joy has also published three books and has been a columnist for three magazines, focusing on parenting and education.

Lev Gonick

Lev Gonick

Educator, technologist, and smart city architect

Lev Gonick is an educator, technologist, and smart city architect. He has been teaching, working, and living on the Net for more than 25 years.

Currently, Lev is the Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University. He leads the ASU University Technology Office that provides technology services to all students, faculty, and staff. He is also cofounder of DigitalC, previously OneCommunity, the award-winning non-profit organization enabling and celebrating innovation, collaboration, and productivity through next-generation broadband networks, big open data solutions, and IoT for public benefit. From 2001 to 2013, Lev was CIO at Case Western Reserve University. He and his colleagues were internationally recognized for technology innovations in community engagement, learning spaces, next-generation network projects, and organizational development.

Inside Business Magazine named Lev one of their Power 100 in 2015. In 2011, Government Technology awarded Lev one of their “Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers in Public-Sector Innovation. In 2010, he received recognition as “Visionary of the Year” from NATOA. Lev has been recognized by ComputerWorld as a Premier 100 IT leader and honored by CIO magazine with a CIO 100 Award.

Lev’s specialties include Smart City Solutions, Smart City Architecture, The Future of Education, Broadband, Social Networking and Network Economy, Fiber to the Home, Innovation and Technology, Smart and Connected Communities, Internet of Things, Programmable City, City as an Operating System, Political Economy, and Information Technology.
Kay Krafft

Kay Krafft

CEO at Relias and CEO of the Bertelsmann Education Group

For Kay, the use of emerging technology is an essential link in the value chain of 21st century learning, employment and recruitment. Before founding the Bertelsmann Education Group, he played a key role in building BMG from a start-up to a leading company in the music industry. Before joining BMG’s Executive Board, he implemented Bertelsmann’s portfolio adjustment between 2006 and 2008.

Prior to Bertelsmann, Kay was a partner at Deloitte. Other experiences include a period with Deutsche Börse AG and private equity firm Beteiligungsgesellschaft Neue Länder. Kay compares entrepreneurship to endurance training: in spite of the ups and downs, the objective is to remain focused on the long-term goal.

Dr. Jill Buban

Dr. Jill Buban

Vice President and General Manager of EdAssist

With more than twenty years of in-depth experience spanning in the postsecondary education and ed tech sectors, Dr. Jill Buban is one of the nation’s leading working learner experts and is passionate about increasing access to educational opportunities that make a concrete difference for learners.

As Vice President and General Manager of EdAssist by Bright Horizons, Dr. Buban helps companies reimagine the role of education in the workplace and understand how it can be a tool not only to entice new talent and encourage retention, but also to inspire adult learners to build meaningful skills, explore new professional pathways, and nurture a career that is aligned with the needs of tomorrow’s workforce. From health care to tech, banking to retail, Dr. Buban has forged relationships with and gathered insights from senior leaders in every industry – insights that can inform how we shape the national debate around the future of work post-COVID and help employees find purpose and happiness in work.

Previously, Dr. Buban served in senior roles at multiple postsecondary institutions, spearheading efforts to expand quality educational opportunities and access to nontraditional students. She also led two national organizations (Unizin Consortium and the Online Learning Consortium) where she honed expertise on innovation and impact in learning. She has built a sterling reputation as an expert in higher education and adult learning, and is a recognized influencer in workforce development and education technology.

Joseph Watt

Joseph Watt

Vice President of Impact Investing, ECMC Group

Joseph (Joe) is the Vice President of Impact Investing at ECMC Group. In his role, he leads ECMC Group’s Education Impact Fund, a $250M impact investment platform investing in early stage companies that are improving access and outcomes for underserved learners and advancing the training of America’s workforce. He has prior experience across strategy, corporate development, and investments in technology and education. He lives outside of Durham, NC with his wife and dog.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.

President & CEO, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM). Mr. Taylor’s career spans more than 20 years as a lawyer and an executive with not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, including IAC, Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment Group and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, among others. He has served as chairman of the President’s Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and on the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board. He is a Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees at his alma mater, the University of Miami; and a member of the corporate boards of Guild Education and iCIMS, Inc. Mr. Taylor is a weekly contributor to USA Today, a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources and a SHRM Certified Professional.

Adrian Ridner

Adrian Ridner

CEO & Co-Founder, Study.com

Adrian Ridner is co-founder and CEO of Study.com, an education platform supporting 30 million learners and educators a month in achieving their academic goals. As a Latino EdTech founder and first-generation college graduate, Adrian has spent the past two decades focused on making education accessible for under-supported learners. In 2019, Silicon Valley Business Journal named Adrian a 40 Under 40 honoree and Silicon Valley Latino honored him with their prestigious Latino Trailblazer Award. He served on the Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s Game Changers 2020 team to cast a vision of transformative learning and its social impact. Adrian serves on the board of the Riecken Foundation, promoting literacy and access to knowledge in Central America since 2000. He also serves as a board member for Cal Poly State University’s Engineering & Computer Science advisory council, where he has helped transform the curriculum to prepare graduates for their fast-changing technology careers.

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