Board of Directors

She also partners with leaders during their seasons of growth and scale. Her partners include Desmos, Formation Ventures, Google, Swing Education, Moonshot edVentures as well as other K12 education and workforce development organizations.

Previously, Elizabeth was the Senior Vice President at the Pahara Institute, an organization that provides transformational development opportunities for American education leaders. She launched a new programmatic department and led the organization’s operations. She also served as the Chief Program Officer at Summit Public Schools, where she co-founded the Summit Learning Program, a national program that enabled students to attain the skills, knowledge, and habits to live a fulfilled life. Under her leadership, the program grew from 19 schools across 10 states to over 380 schools in 40 states serving over 65,000 students.

Elizabeth earned her B.A. in Public Policy and MA in Education from Stanford University. She enjoys serving her community as a board member of Summit Public Schools and has also advised the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on their K12 education strategy. Elizabeth is a recipient of the 2019-20 Stanford University Award of Merit and a 2017-2018 Pahara Fellow. In her free time, Elizabeth enjoys spending time with her family and friends over food and tea.

Anna Gregory is an education consultant with extensive leadership experience across both traditional district and charter schools. She specializes in driving strategic initiatives at the intersection of talent, organizational strategy, and communications, partnering with school systems and nonprofits to maximize their potential.

Before becoming an independent consultant, Anna served as Chief Talent Officer at KIPP DC, where she oversaw talent acquisition, human resources, and leadership development across the network’s nine campuses and network office. Prior to KIPP DC, she spent a decade at DC Public Schools, holding various leadership roles, including Chief of Staff to the Chancellor.

Anna holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Kansas, a Master of Arts in Teaching from American University, and a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton University.  She lives in the Bay Area with her daughter and husband.

Michele Hansen is an advocate in the education space and a former educator herself, who started as a first grade teacher in the Poway Unified School District and soon after became a First Grade Team Leader. For the next nine years, Michele spent her time at Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, CA, leading marketing and engineering teams, forging external relationships, supported in defining joint goals, strategies and budgets for Hewlett Packard’s Executive Team.  Michele then joined California Charter Schools Association as the Vice President of Products and Services, while managing the public relations, marketing, data analytics, finance and strategic planning. Previously, Ms. Hansen served as the is currently the Co-Founder, President and CEO of Activate Instruction, which provides an enriched, personalized learning experience through playlists. Ms. Hansen presently serves in a volunteer capacity as the Vice-Chair of The Girard Foundation Board of Directors.

Michele received a Bachelor Degree in Government from Claremont McKenna College, a Masters in Education from Stanford University, an Elementary Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from the University of California, San Diego and a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from the the J.L Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Michele’s experience and knowledge about instruction, business management, finance, professional development, public relations and marketing as well as organizational leadership make Michele an exceptional nominee for the Summit Public Schools Board of Directors.

Currently, Jimmy serves as a Director at the Bay Ed Fund, where he partners with school districts and communities to create the conditions for bold, student-centered change. His work focuses on building strong partnerships, sharpening strategy, and aligning teams to bring a community’s shared vision to life.

Previously, Jimmy was a Portfolio Director at Transcend Education, where he co-led national efforts to expand access to community-based design. He also worked at Panorama Education, coaching school and district leaders across the country to use whole-child data to drive meaningful systems change. Earlier in his career, he spent eight years at Summit Public Schools, teaching high school English and later serving as Executive Director of Summit Everest. In that role, he led the school through critical transitions, including the rapid shift to virtual learning during the pandemic.

Jimmy earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Arts in Educational Studies from Tufts University, where he focused on systemic inequities in education. He also holds a Master of Arts in Education from Stanford University, where he studied approaches like Complex Instruction to design inclusive, high-performing classrooms.

Before her work leading at Summit, Malia was an assistant school leader and teacher at the Noble Network of Charter Schools in Chicago, IL. She began her teaching career in the Bronx where the incredible young people in her classes taught her the magic that can happen in a classroom and the transformational possibility of school when we get it right.

Malia was born on Kauai and connects her deep belief in the power of diversity to growing up in a culturally rich and diverse community. Malia is an alum of Seattle University and Columbia University. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two sweet, energetic sons. In her free time, you can find Malia watching the sunrise over Lake Washington with her rowing team or eating great food in friends’ homes or in Seattle’s great restaurants.

Mafara is the current Director of Communications at the Swedish Medical Center where she directs strategy, plans, executes internal communications and public affairs across five hospitals and seven campuses in the Seattle area. Mafara joined the Swedish Medical Center after more than two years as the Executive Communications Director at the City of Seattle. Mafara came to Seattle after serving an appointment in the Office of General Services in the Obama Administration.

Mafara has deep roots in public education advocacy and was a pivotal member of Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty’s team at a time of significant transformation within the DC public school district. Later Mafara joined forces with StudentsFirst a national non-profit organization in support of education reform based in Sacramento. As the Marketing and Communications Chief, she drove digital and social media strategies in creating a grassroot movement to attract and engage more than one million parents, students and public school advocates across the country to join forces with the movement. Mafara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Howard University.