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Stuart Andreason Director of Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Stuart Andreason is the director of the Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In his role he conducts research and works across the country to support Federal Reserve and partner organization efforts in workforce development, the labor market, and economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income workers. Andreason has been at the Federal Reserve since 2014 and previously served as a senior adviser on human capital and workforce development. In that role he has published articles on workforce development practice and policy and labor market trends, including deep analysis of opportunity occupations, or middle-skill jobs that pay high wages. He is the editor of Developing Career-Based Training and Models for Labor Market Intermediaries. Prior to joining the Atlanta Fed, Andreason was a research associate at the Penn Institute for Urban Research at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn IUR). There, he helped develop a set of indicators of livable and sustainable communities for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funded by the Ford Foundation. He was a fellow of the Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences at Penn and a Lincoln Institute of Land Policy C. Lowell Harriss fellow. Previously, he led two nonprofit organizations focused on economic revitalization in central Virginia and worked for the Pew Partnership for Civic Change. He is a reviewer for several academic and practice-based journals and publications. Andreason teaches economic development analysis at Georgia Institute of Technology. He has bachelor's and master's degrees in urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia and a PhD in city and regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania. Stuart.Andreason@atl.frb.org ​

John Macintosh Managing Partner, Sea Change Capital Partners John leads SeaChange Capital Partners with overall responsibility for grant-making, credit, and advisory services. He also explores new ways that SeaChange might help nonprofits explore or complete sensible transactions while at the same time offering attractive, leveraged opportunities for funders. Prior to joining SeaChange in 2008, John was a partner at Warburg Pincus in that global private equity firm’s New York, Tokyo, and London offices. At Warburg Pincus, he was responsible for overseeing the firm’s expansion into several new international markets and industry segments, designed the firm’s investment performance and measurement system, was co-head of professional development, and served as a director of 16 portfolio companies. John remains involved with Warburg Pincus as a limited partner. Earlier in his career John worked as a software engineer in Tokyo and a management consultant at Oliver Wyman. John did a mid-life masters in philosophy at the London School of Economics. At the same time, and in conjunction with Lord Richard Layard of the Centre for Economic Performance (at the London School of Economics) and Dr Martin E.P. Seligman of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, he coordinated a three-year program in resilience-building and depression prevention for more than 3,000 children across 25 middle schools in the United Kingdom. John has a BSE from Princeton University and a MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics. In conjunction with his role at SeaChange, he serves as an observer on a number of nonprofit boards (or finance committees) and is also an equity investment advisor to MicroVest Capital Management. John lives in Brooklyn with his wife and four daughters. jmacintosh@seachangecap.org ​

Shelley Nickel Former Executive Vice Chancellor for Strategy and Fiscal Affairs, University System of Georgia Shelley C. Nickel recently retired from the University System of Georgia after a distinguished career as a respected public servant in the field of public administration and policy. Most recently, she served as the Interim President of Georgia Southern, a regional university enrolling 26,400 students in southeast Georgia. Under her tenure, the University entered its first year as a new institution, after the recent consolidation of Georgia Southern and Armstrong State Universities. Nickel previously served as Executive Vice Chancellor for Strategy and Fiscal Affairs and Treasurer for the Board of Regents, University System of Georgia (USG) providing strategic leadership and policy guidance for the Board and the System’s 26 institutions. Her portfolio included all financial activity, research and policy analysis and information technology, providing the Board and University System the ability to make data-driven decisions. Shelley was responsible for executing the board’s strategic plan and implementing system-wide projects such as consolidation, which reduced the number of institutions from 35 to 26 since 2011. The USG’s consolidation initiative has served as a national model for other higher education systems. Shelley also led the University System’s effort to operationalize shared services practices for administrative functions. These initiatives created greater efficiency and better use of University System resources, including more than $32.9 million in annual cost savings. Nickel has served in a wide range of administrative positions in Georgia. She was appointed Interim President of Gordon College, a USG liberal arts college serving 5,000 students. She was also appointed by Governor Sonny Perdue as director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget for the state of Georgia, the highest state office in budget planning and management. Nickel also served as president of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, which is responsible for the state’s scholarship, grant and loan programs, including the nationally known HOPE Program. She is a graduate of Penn State University, where she earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Public Administration. She is a life member of the Penn State Alumni Association and served on the College of Liberal Arts Alumni Society Board. Shelley.Nickel@usg.edu ​

Amy Laitenen Director, Higher Education at New America Amy Laitinen is director for higher education with the Education Policy program at New America. She previously served as a policy advisor on higher education at both the U.S. Department of Education and the White House. She was named a top innovator for her work on federal policy and competency-based education by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Her current work focuses on federal policies to increase quality and transparency in higher education as well as the politics of higher education reform. Laitinen is the product of public higher education, holding an associate degree from Miami-Dade Community College, a bachelor’s degree from New College of Florida, and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley. laitinen@newamerica.org ​

Marc Dones Executive Director, NIS Marc Dones is a social entrepreneur, policy strategist and social justice activist with 10+ years of experience in equitable systems transformation across local, state, and federal governmental systems. As the Executive Director of the National Innovation Service (NIS), Marc oversees day-to-day operations and strategy for policy, design, operations & business development work streams (1M+/year). NIS partners with government agencies, for profit organizations and nonprofits to propel equity work across the policy space. They focus on: homelessness & housing; racial equity; LGBTQ+ rights; violence prevention & justice system reform, as well as community-based responses to substance use disorders. Most recently, NIS was charged with the design/stand-up of the new regional authority overseeing homelessness response in King County, WA, which includes the City of Seattle. Their team is known for making equity work actionable and holding partners accountable to bold outcomes. Prior to launching NIS, Marc held various roles in social impact, specializing in policy, program design, continuous improvement. This includes leadership roles at The Future Company and Center for Social Innovation (C4). At C4, they lead the SPARC (Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities) Initiative, engaging 8+ jurisdictions, 20+ agencies, and the US government in efforts to transform the national conversation about housing. They also served in various roles at the state-level. This included working on the design & implementation of Gov. Patrick’s $10M/yr youth violence reduction program in 11 cities. Outside of direct systems transformation, Marc is a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and leverages their experience as a keynote & panelist. They have spoken at The White House & Harvard University. Marc holds a BA from NYU in Psychiatric Anthropology and is a highly-qualified equity trainer. They are currently based in the Greater New York City area. marc@nis.us ​

Nick Hillman Associate Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis, University of Wisconsin-Madison Nick Hillman is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he teaches higher education finance, policy, and introductory statistics for educational researchers. His research focuses on federal student aid, state funding models, and educational opportunity. In addition to teaching and research, he is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Higher Education, co-chair of the Madison chapter of Scholars Strategy Network, and a faculty affiliate in the La Follette School of Public Affairs, Center for Financial Security, and Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education. He is a proud McNair Scholar and alum of Indiana University-Bloomington, where he earned his BS and MPA from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and PhD from the School of Education. nwhillman@wisc.edu ​

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Kevin McFarland Head of Industry Partnerships, Coursera Kevin McFarland seeks to increase access to education and equip people around the world to transform their lives. At Coursera, he leads a team that partners with leading companies to train professionals with the skills they need to secure and perform the jobs of the future. His team works with 30+ companies such as Google, IBM, & Goldman Sachs to scale their training & certification initiatives and reach learners around the world whether via online channels; community college, higher education, and nonprofit partners; or enterprise clients. These initiatives range from pathways for nontraditional students to secure their first job in a new, growing career field to credentials for professionals to advance in their career. Previously, Kevin was a strategy manager at Accenture where he specialized in new business strategy and strategic partnerships for enterprise technology companies. He was a part of the leadership team that started and grew a portfolio of 9+ joint-business partnerships between Accenture and other leading enterprise technology companies such as Adobe, Dell, HPE, and Intel that generated more than $500M in sales. While at Accenture, he co-formed 2 new strategy groups and delivered $6M+ in strategy projects. He received a B.A. in Economics & Philosophy summa cum laude from Seattle Pacific University where he served as the student body president and formed a new student leadership department for intercultural affairs. He received his A.A.S. from Bellevue College through a dual-enrollment program for high-school students and served on the student government where he was involved in providing services and programs for nontraditional students. kmcfarland@coursera.org ​

Ya-Chi Hung Senior Research Scientist, USC Race & Equity Center Ya-Chi Hung is a Senior Research Scientist in the USC Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California. Hung is a quantitative researcher with a substantive focus on college student success, campus climate, and survey methodology and data quality. Her recent and ongoing work includes understanding degree aspirations and graduate school access for underrepresented student populations, identifying challenges in assessment in higher education, and seeking ways to capture data for underserved college students. She is currently in charge of the data and research work of the NACCC project, a national racial campus climate survey focusing on the race, equity, and inclusion issues among college students. Hung is a doctoral candidate in Higher Education at the Pennsylvania State University. Previously, she worked in Student Affairs Research and Assessment at the Pennsylvania State University where she supported the institutional research, programming, and strategic decision-making needs of the division of student affairs. yachihun@usc.edu ​

Jacob Fraire President and CEO, Texas Association of Community Colleges As President and CEO, Jacob Fraire provides leadership to the association’s core mission and strategies to advance equity and sustainability among the state’s 50 independently-governed public community college districts. Together, Texas community colleges serve more than 730,000 students. Before joining TACC, Mr. Fraire served as Vice President of philanthropy at Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation, now known as Trellis Company. Acting as the chief architect of the corporate philanthropy, Mr. Fraire stewarded $80 million in competitive grants to advance college access, need-based financial aid, success, and research. Mr. Fraire has served on multiple state and national boards and advisory committees. For more than a decade, Mr. Fraire served in advocacy and lobbying positions in Washington, DC. He also served as Director of Legislation and Policy Analysis for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and a senior legislative coordinator for a DC-based law firm representing colleges and universities. The son of migrant farm workers, Mr. Fraire grew up in El Paso, Texas. In May 2013, he was awarded an honorary associates degree from El Paso Community College, an honor he describes as his most cherished higher education credential. He holds a Bachelor of Science from St. Edward’s University and Master in Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin. jfraire@tacc.org ​

Janet Holmgren President Emerita, Mills College, Oakland, Ca; Principal, Jangren Higher Education Consulting LLC, Oakland, CA Janet L. Holmgren is a consultant to higher education and nonprofit organizations. Her current and recent consulting work includes the Lower Cost Models for Independent Colleges Consortium, Bay Path University, the Women’s College Coalition, the East Bay Community Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Davis Education Foundation, the Peralta Community Colleges, Cooper University, UniversityNow, and the University of Advanced Technology. She speaks annually at the Education Leadership Academy of the University of California, Berkeley and is an adjunct faculty member for the Center for the Study of Higher Education at UCB. She is also a consultant through the Association of Governing Boards to various higher educational institutions. Prior to establishing her consulting practice, she served as senior vice president for a high tech, socially responsible, higher education start up company UniversityNow (UNOW) and as president of the UNOW subsidiary, Patten University. Her longest service to a single higher educational institution was her 20 year tenure as President and Susan Mills Professor of English at Mills College (Oakland, CA) from 1991 to 2011. Her leadership at Mills supported major fundraising with a Sesquicentennial campaign that exceeded its $100 million goal by $32 million; building substantial new and enhanced graduate programs; taking faculty diversity from 3% to 27%; supporting more than $150 million in renovation and new construction; growing the student body from 1100 to 1600; introducing major curricular changes to enhance multicultural education. Before joining Mills, she served as Vice Provost and as a faculty member in the English Department of Princeton University, Senior Administrator at the University of Maryland, College Park, and full-time faculty member at the University of Maryland and the University of the District of Columbia in Linguistics and English. She has chaired the Boards of the American Council on Education, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement for Teaching and Learning, the National Council for Research on Women, the California Governor’s Task Force on Governance in Education from Pre-K to College, and UpStart Bay Area. She has served on the Boards of numerous educational institutions, including Princeton University and the Urban School of San Francisco. Currently she serves on the Boards of UpStart Bay Area, the Princeton University Committee to Nominate Alumni Trustees, and the Rosalind Franklin Society. Dr. Holmgren speaks and writes on a wide range of topics such as the intersection of for profit and not for profit higher education, online learning, women’s education and leadership, Federal funding and financial aid, the GI Bill, urban school reform, women in science, and making colleges more diverse and woman-friendly. jan@jangren.com ​