Program:
7:30-8:00am Registration/Breakfast
8:00-9:00am Panel Discussion and Q&A

Cost includes breakfast, and all guests will receive a free copy of Getting to Bartlett Street.

Speaker Bios:

Charles Best
Founder & CEO, DonorsChoose.org

Charles Best leads DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit organization which provides a simple, personal, and accountable way for people to address educational inequity. At DonorsChoose.org, public school teachers post classroom project requests, and donors can pick the projects they want to support. Every donor then gets photographs and thank-you letters from the classroom he or she chose to help.

Recognition of DonorsChoose.org includes the Amazon.com Nonprofit Innovation Award, selection by Ashoka, and election by the TechCrunch community as the website “most likely to make the world a better place.” Fortune Magazine has twice featured Charles in the “40 under 40” list of “business’s hottest rising stars.”

In 2010, Oprah Winfrey announced DonorsChoose.org as one of her “Ultimate Favorite Things.” In 2011, Fast Company listed DonorsChoose.org as one of the “50 Most Innovative Companies in the World,” the first time a charity has received this recognition.

Kristen Kane

Kristen Kane is COO of Amplify, Inc. where she is responsible for building the division and executing on the corporate strategy in education. Prior to joining Amplify, Kristen worked at the Federal Communications Commission developing strategies for applying broadband technologies in the education, healthcare, and energy sectors. In the Bloomberg administration, Kristen served as COO of the New York City Department of Education where she was responsible for the development and implementation of the Children First reform strategy as well as oversight of daily operations. While at the Department she also served as Chief Executive of the Office of New Schools, which opened 178 new schools and charters under her leadership. Earlier in her career, Kristen worked in equity research at JPMorgan covering the education sector. She holds an MBA and Certificate in Public Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA from Yale.

Janet Reich Elsbach

Janet Reich Elsbach, BA Stanford '89 and MA Ed NYU '92 is a writer and teacher living in Western Massachusetts.

Spencer Robertson

Spencer Robertson, Founder and Executive Director, is responsible for overall management of PAVE. Before launching PAVE, Mr. Robertson worked at North Star Academy Charter School of Newark. Mr. Robertson completed the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship, which provided him one year to study the highest performing public schools in America. Mr. Robertson holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, with a focus on the non-profit sector. His education career includes three years as a seventh and eighth graders language arts and Spanish teacher and co-founder of the school’s running club. He then served as a program officer at the Tiger Foundation, supporting after-school programs and early child development initiatives throughout New York City. He graduated from Duke University in 1998. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and four children