The executive search team at Promise54 is honored to have led the recruiting that resulted in these recent placements
Roberto Rodríguez
President & Chief Executive Officer of Teach Plus
Mónica Vásquez
Chief Talent Officer of Alliance College-Ready Public Schools
Nate Easley
Chief Executive Officer of Blue School Partners
Amy Wilkins
Senior Vice President of Advocacy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Jason Atwood
Director of Research & Learning at NewSchools Venture Fund
Colette Owens
Executive Director of Hiawatha Academies
Roberto Rodríguez
President & Chief Executive Officer of Teach Plus
Mónica Vásquez
Chief Talent Officer of Alliance College-Ready Public Schools
Nate Easley
Chief Executive Officer of Blue School Partners
Amy Wilkins
Senior Vice President of Advocacy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Jason Atwood
Director of Research & Learning at NewSchools Venture Fund
Colette Owens
Executive Director of Hiawatha Academies
Roberto Rodríguez
President & Chief Executive Officer of Teach Plus
Roberto is President and CEO of Teach Plus. He spearheads the organization’s work to grow and strengthen the teacher leadership movement by developing and advancing teachers as leaders in education policy and practice, and by supporting their contribution to educational innovation and change in classrooms and schools.
Roberto has dedicated his career to advancing equity, access, and excellence in education. He is nationally recognized for his expertise in education policy and governance, and for his leadership in building multi-sector partnerships with schools, families, and communities to improve educational opportunities for all children. He is devoted to the principle that all students deserve a complete and competitive education that prepares them for college, careers, and lifelong success. Roberto served in senior roles in the United States Senate and in the White House. From 2009 to 2017, he served as President Obama’s Deputy Assistant to the President for Education where he developed and led education initiatives to build systemic change and improve opportunity and outcomes across the educational continuum. His efforts led to an increase of tens of thousands of additional children enrolled in early education; new partnerships to better personalize and re-design the high school experience to meet individual needs of students; creation of a new, national focus on excellence in STEM education; and an expansion of the Pell Grant to boost participation in higher education. Prior to his service in the White House, Roberto spent eight years as principal education advisor to the late U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, where he led successful bipartisan efforts that resulted in the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, and the Head Start Act of 2007. Roberto began his professional career in Washington, D.C. at the National Council of La Raza, where he directed research and policy analysis of federal and state education issues.
Roberto holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He resides with his wife and two children in the Washington, D.C. area.
Mónica Vásquez
Chief Talent Officer of Alliance College-Ready Public Schools
As the Chief Talent Officer at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Mónica is responsible for making sure Alliance leverages its greatest organizational asset – its people – in pursuit of its mission.
Prior to joining Alliance in March 2017, Mónica was the Chief Human Resources Officer at the San Francisco Unified School District, California’s seventh largest public school district. Mónica has also served as: a Partner in the Performance Management group at TNTP (The New Teacher Project), a national nonprofit committed to ending the injustice of educational inequality through its work with schools, districts, and states; a Vice President for Educational Services of America, where she focused on expanding its special and alternative education programs; on the senior management team at The Breakthrough Collaborative, where she oversaw the deployment of affiliate services to its affiliates nationwide; and as a Recruitment Director, Program Director and School Director at Teach For America. Mónica is a Los Angeles native and began her education career in 1994 as a bilingual classroom teacher in southern California and holds degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.
Nate Easley
Chief Executive Officer of Blue School Partners
Nate is the founding Chief Executive Officer of Blue School Partners, an organization created to support developing quality schools, growing the pool of talent, and expanding parent and community engagement in Denver. Prior to this appointment, Nate spent nearly a decade as CEO of the Denver Scholarship Fund. Under his leadership, the Denver Scholarship Fund invested $33 million in 5,600 Denver Public Schools graduates, three out of four of whom have completed a college degree/certificate or continue to persist towards that important milestone. From 2009 to 2013, he served as an elected board member for Denver Public Schools, including terms as President and Secretary. He also worked as Vice President for National and International Programs for the Council for Opportunity in Education in Washington D.C.
Easley is a current member of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s Education Compact, the Community College of Denver Advisory Council, the National College Access Network Board, the Colorado School of Public Health Advisory Council, and Colorado Latinos for Education Reform.. At American University, Nate focused his master’s and doctorate on how higher education can better support the academic success and college completion of Black and Latino students and has since spent more than 25 years working at the state, national and international levels to create opportunities for first-generation, low-income and ethnic minority students. He is a proud graduate of Denver’s Montbello High School.
Amy Wilkins
Senior Vice President of Advocacy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Amy is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. She began her career as an organizer for Fair Share Action in the early 80s, before beginning a nearly decade-long tenure at the Children’s Defense Fund where, among other accomplishments, Wilkins helped pass a key child care and development block grant and pushed candidates to address children’s issues in the 1992 election. She next served in a series of political positions, working on health care legislation for the Democratic National Committee, leading public forums on child care for the U.S. Department of Labor, and serving as Acting Director for the White House Office of Media Affairs. In 1995, Wilkins joined The Education Trust , where for the next sixteen years she would lead the student advocacy organization through key milestones, including: driving their efforts to safeguard Title II of the Higher Education Act so that teachers have funding for preparation and training; shaping aspects of No Child Left Behind to protect our most vulnerable students; and increasing the visibility of pre-K as a priority issue. Wilkins was named Senior Fellow for Social Justice at The College Board in 2013, where she led efforts to increase AP enrollment among high achieving African American students, and addressed the achievement and attainment gaps separating middle class African American students from their white peers.
Jason Atwood
Director of Research & Learning at NewSchools Venture Fund
Jason works at the intersection of education research, practice, policy, and philanthropy to help organizations know, grow, and show their impact. As Director of Research and Learning at NewSchools Venture Fund, Jason partners with the investment team, ventures, and external researchers to build systems and enact practices that spark curiosity, support innovation, and advance evidence-based decision-making across the education sector. Before joining NewSchools, Jason was the Senior Director of Evaluation & Learning at Education Pioneers and the Managing Director of Research Partnerships at Teach For America. At TFA, he also served as the project officer for the implementation and impact studies of a $50M U.S. Department of Education Investing in Innovation Scale-Up Grant. Jason has also worked in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education in Washington, DC, with Envision Schools, and as the director of student life at College Track. Jason has an M.A. in education from U.C. Berkeley and double-majored in philosophy and government at Georgetown University.
Colette Owens
Executive Director of Hiawatha Academies
Colette Owens began her career as a special education teacher and held several senior positions for Teach for America-St. Louis, where she focused on teacher leadership development, strategic planning and aligning the organization’s priorities and structures.
She then served as interim director of curriculum and director of strategy and special projects for St. Louis Public Schools before being named executive director for Hiawatha Academies.
