charter-schools
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Julie Jackson
Julie Jackson is the Co-Chief Executive Officer of Uncommon Schools, a nonprofit network of high-performing public charter schools serving roughly 20,000 students across New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The first Black Co-CEO in the organization's history, she has spent three decades in education, starting as a Teach For America corps member in Paterson, New Jersey in 1994 and rising from founding teacher and principal to President and now Co-CEO. She oversees all 53 K-12 Uncommon Schools and has trained more than 25,000 teachers and leaders across the United States and abroad. Known for her belief that schools should be places of both joy and rigor, she is a recognized voice on teacher development, college completion, and equity in urban public education.
Jacob Allen
Jacob Allen is the co-founder and CEO of Reportwell, a software startup that turns the slow, paperwork-heavy work of regulatory compliance reporting into a clean, AI-assisted portal, starting with K-12 schools and the agencies that oversee them. He came to the problem the hard way: as the co-founder and CEO of pilotED Schools, a charter network built around identity and sociology, he drowned in state and city compliance reports and decided to build the tool he wished he had. A Teach For America alum, Echoing Green Fellow, and Forbes 30 Under 30 in Education honoree, Allen has spent his career on the conviction that students do better when they understand who they are, and that the adults serving them deserve software that does not get in the way.
Frances Messano
Frances Messano is CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy that backs early-stage education entrepreneurs across the U.S. A Brooklyn native, first-generation college graduate, and Harvard-trained economist, she left Wall Street (Morgan Stanley equity derivatives) for a decade-long arc through consulting and Teach For America before landing at NewSchools in 2015. She rose to President, built the Diverse Leaders investment strategy, and in January 2023 became the organization's first woman of color to serve as CEO. Under her leadership, NewSchools has deployed $23M+ supporting 80 teams in a single year, with 76% of portfolio companies led by people of color.