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Aimée is the founder and CEO of Braven which works to ensure underrepresented college students develop the skills, confidence, experiences and networks to get strong first jobs after graduation. She founded Braven based on her deep belief that our next generation of leaders will emerge from everywhere. Aimée spent the majority of her career at Teach For America. She held various senior leadership roles, including leading the organization’s groundbreaking work around its human capital and diversity efforts. Earlier in her career, Aimée taught sixth grade, led the Breakthrough/Summerbridge New Orleans site, and worked for the national organization. She is a recipient of The 1954 Project’s 2021 Luminary Awards, a 2020 Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow, 2019 Obama Foundation Fellow, Pahara-Aspen fellow, a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, a Braddock Scholar, a Draper Richards Foundation Entrepreneur, and a Camelback Ventures Fellow. A graduate of Mt. Holyoke College, Aimée resides in Chicago with her husband and three children.

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Abdurrahman manages the planning and implementation for Braven’s Professional Mentor Program.

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Aleks is a first-generation college graduate from National Louis University and was part of the first Chicago Braven cohort in Spring 2018. They transitioned into their internship role in 2019 through 2020 and have made their way back into Braven on the tech team. They have contributed to multiple Braven programs such as NLU accelerator, BravenX, and Braven Booster. Aleks is responsible for supporting their team through quality assurance, resolving technology issues, and assisting with the accelerator course.

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Alexis Rodriguez is a proud first-generation, low-income college graduate from Nashville, TN. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, reading, and eating her way through Chicago’s amazing food scene. She is passionate about her family, voting rights, Rhode Island, and cats. An avid explorer, Alexis hopes to visit all the U.S. national parks during her lifetime!

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Amy Cisneros is the Site Director for Braven Chicago and oversees Braven program implementation for BravenX and at National Louis University. She ensures the successful execution of the Accelerator course, recruits, and trains volunteers, and builds and supports partnerships with universities, employer partners, and other stakeholders.

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Anastasia is the Managing Director at Braven Newark and oversees program implementation at Rutgers University Newark. She is a proud first-generation graduate and holds a BA from Vassar College and an MA from Rutgers University.

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Angelica provides executive support and relationship management support to New York & Atlanta Executive Directors. As a member of the People & Operations Team, she supports the daily operation of the Chicago office.

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Angie is the Director of Fellow Recruitment at Braven, where she sets the vision and strategy for best-in-class recruitment for the Accelerator course, in partnership with regional teams. Prior to Braven, Angie spent a decade at Teach For America, where she led high-performing teams to produce groundbreaking recruitment results across top colleges and universities. Angie’s impact began as a 5th grade Science teacher, where she led her students to achieve historic academic gains, in addition to being tapped for the ESL Teacher of the Year Award.  She earned her BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her MA from Columbia University Teachers College.  An avid reader and foodie, Angie resides in New York City with her husband and two kiddos.

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Annie designs, leads, and ensures smooth operations and quality execution of the Accelerator course across regions.

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Bekka Scaffer is responsible for collaboratively building a deeper understanding of the philanthropic communities in which Braven works, crafting Braven’s story to inspire action within those communities, and creating and managing effective stewardship processes that fuel ongoing commitment among donors.

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Briannah oversees the overall student experience of Braven at San José State University. She runs operations and logistics for Learning Labs and Braven events where she supports Fellows, Leadership Coaches, Teacher Assistants, and professors.

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Brisdy Carrillo Vega is the External Affairs Manager in the Bay Area. She works closely with our employer partners to represent the Braven Bay Area in a positive light while assisting the Executive Director to build meaningful relationships that contribute to an equitable future for our students. She also helps manage internal and external communications, heavily support fundraising and employer partnership efforts as well as raise brand awareness. She keeps certain values like equality, resilience, and family very close to heart which is reflected in her body of work. 

As an alum of SJSU in the class of Fall 2020, Bridy joined Braven’s forces as an Administrative Coordinator intern before joining full time. Her tie to Braven dates back to Spring 2019 when she took Braven. As a first generation DACA student, she realized that she wouldn’t have the same opportunities as other students and struggled to really find her place when she started college but Braven provided her with the community and network she didn’t realize she needed. She now hopes to give back to students that come from underrepresented backgrounds in her work with Braven. She hopes for a future where everyone can reach an equitable education. Brisdy’s work with employer partners has also led her to cross paths with impactful entrepreneurs and she hopes to lead a similar effort in her later years.

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Catherine drives strategic projects related to organizational health, growth, and sustainability in order to maximize the impact of the Braven accelerator. In addition, she supports and serves as a thought partner to the CEO.

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Charity provides executive support and relationship management support to executive directors and oversees operations at Braven’s Atlanta hub.

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Charlotte provides Salesforce support on programmatic operations as well as collaborates as a thought-partner on continuous improvement and enhancement projects for our overall Salesforce system.

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Che D. Watkins is the Executive Director – Atlanta for Braven. Ms. Watkins served as President & CEO of The Center for Working Families, a nonprofit focused on workforce development to create economic success for hard-working families and their children.

Ms. Watkins has more than 30 years of experience in external affairs, public policy, business development, community engagement and development and finance. Ms. Watkins spent more than four years with the Metro Atlanta Chamber as Vice President of External Affairs where she leveraged her skills to develop relationships with local government officials, metro area Chambers, regional and community nonprofits, corporate leaders and other community voices.  She also managed the Chamber’s Greater Grady Task Force and served as Education and Campaign Manager for the 2012 Metro Atlanta Transportation Referendum that executed a $9 million voter education and advocacy effort to draw 300,000 voters to the polls to pass an $8 billion transportation referendum for the metro Atlanta region.

Ms. Watkins began her career with J.P. Morgan & Co. in Accounting before moving into client interfacing leadership positions at Bank of America and Wachovia.

Ms. Watkins holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Spelman College and her MBA from New York University.

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Chun Ying oversees program-related data management, analysis, and reporting and overall research and evaluation efforts at Braven.

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Cybil is responsible for stewarding a portfolio of existing employer partners and cultivating relationships with new prospective partners. Her work centers on supporting Braven’s corporate fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and strong outcomes for Fellows.

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Daniel is responsible for designing and implementing Braven’s employer partnership strategy. He guides the cultivation of employer partners in each Braven market, develops infrastructure to measure outcomes, and creates engagements that offer shared value to both Braven’s partners as well as our diverse, driven college students.

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Diana Phuong is the Executive Director of Braven in the Bay Area. She joined Braven at San Josè State University as Site Director in January 2020, and in her first year, adapted the core Accelerator Course to an entirely virtual context, to much success. Prior to Braven, Diana engaged counties, districts, and schools in integrated STEAM education by leveraging hands-on learning as a Partnership Director for a local nonprofit RAFT. She launched a RAFT STEAM Summer Program through joint funding as a 4.0 Schools Tiny Fellow. Prior to that, Diana spent a decade in teaching and high school administration. Her teaching began as a Teach For America Fellow in Memphis, TN, where she taught 3rd-5th grade English as a Second Language. Diana earned her Bachelor’s in English from University of California-Irvine and Masters in Education from Christian Brothers University. She is the first in her family to receive her Bachelor’s and Master’s. Born and raised in the East Bay, she is the daughter of refugees who started over in America in the late 70’s.

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As a member of the Data Insights team within Product, translates data analysis into actionable insights for Braven’s Accelerator and post-Accelerator programs. Delivers data analysis, reporting, and thought partnership across Braven.

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Ed Herrera is Braven’s first Chief Financial and Operations Officer. In his role, he sets vision, strategy, and direction of Braven’s finance, compliance, IT, people operations, recruitment, hiring, L&D and culture work. Prior to joining Braven staff, Ed served as the CFO of LGBT Center in NYC. He has a BA from UC San Diego and his MBA from Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College.

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Edgar is responsible for building diverse pipelines of talent and directly support hiring managers throughout the hiring process.

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Elena is Braven’s Associate Software Engineer and works with the tech team to help implement features for Braven’s software.

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Eric oversees all student recruitment for BravenX and National Louis University, as well as managing Post-Accelerator Fellow workforce strategies for the Chicago region.

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Guadalupe Emigdio is the Program Manager of Recruitment in the Bay. She joined Braven full-time in March of 2021, a recent graduate for San Jose State University. In her time at SJSU as an undergraduate she participated in the Braven course in Fall 2019. Lupe is a first-generation college student raised by a single mother who immigrated from Mexico in search of a better future. Lupe attributes her personal and professional growth to the experience acquired in connection to Braven. She, like many low-income college students we serve, supported herself financially through higher education. Unable to participate in many career accelerating experiences through the trajectory of her college career UNVS 101, a course offered at SJSU, in partnership with Braven opened a world of opportunities. Lupe interned with Merrill Lynch as a (Client Associate), Katie Couric Media (Media Intern), and Braven (Marketing/Recruitment Intern) through Braven referrals. Lupe’s  internships changed her life. They showed her that someone like her who two years ago was a street vendor has a voice. Braven showed her to own her story because it is her  biggest asset. She is the first to graduate from her family and land a strong job. Lupe is passionate about replicating her results to increase impact for first-generation and low-income nationwide.

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Harry Li joined Braven in June 2019. He oversees the user support, engineering, IT, and data departments. Prior to Braven, Harry devoted his energy towards consulting for education organizations such as EdTech startups and charter schools. Harry was the founding engineer for the Summit Learning program and founded their data science team. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Brown University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin. He enjoys spending time with his family, pursuing many hobbies, and telling dad jokes.

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Hussein oversees the overall student experience of Braven at Lehman College. He runs operations and logistics for Learning Labs and Braven events where he supports Fellows, Leadership Coaches, Teacher Assistants, and professors.

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Jasmine is the Program Operations Coordinator for Braven in the Bay Area. She supports all efforts related to the Accelerator Course at San José State University. As a first-generation student, Jasmine works to ensure all Braven Fellows are given the opportunity to embrace their own potential within the Accelerator, and beyond. Jasmine Prior to Braven, Jasmine worked as a Case Manager at Santa Clara University, connecting students to crucial resources in the community related to personal wellness. Based on this experience, Jasmine is dedicated to advocating for mental health resources for all, but especially folx that hold marginalized identities. Jasmine holds a BS in Psychology from Saint Mary’s College of California and a MA in Higher Education and Student Affairs from the University of Connecticut. On her own time, Jasmine loves to bake, travel with loved ones, and read as many books as possible.

Jenna partners with Braven’s Chief Technology Officer to lead critical elements of the Tech Team’s roadmap, including setting the vision for and managing the Product Support department, setting up and leading Scrum teams to execute initiatives that require a substantial engineering or data component, and serving as the cross-functional coordinator for the Tech team leads. She also served as the initial lead on Braven’s Learning and Development Center of Excellence and continues to contribute her experience in learning and development to this initiative.

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Jonathan oversees Braven’s efforts in Chicago and program implementation at National Louis University. Jonathan ensures the successful execution of the Accelerator course, recruits and trains volunteers, and builds and supports partnerships with universities, employer partners, and other stakeholders.

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In her role as Director of Communications and Marketing, Kasia Kalata combines her experience in marketing and communications to elevate Braven’s brand. With a background in education, Kasia brings her expertise in storytelling, marketing strategy, and connecting with her audience through engaging campaigns.

Kasia graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in Public Policy and minor is Slavic Languages and Literature. While her career began at City Year Chicago, her passion has driven her to continue creating positive change in public education.

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Kilsys Payamps-Roure is the founding Executive Director for Braven in New York City where she leads strategy and management; builds and supports university, employer, and key stakeholder partnerships; and is responsible for brand awareness and fundraising. Most recently Kilsys served as Chief of Staff to the General Manager and Chief Operating Officer at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). At NYCHA, she set organizational strategy and helped to lead the day-to- day operations of an agency serving over 600,000 residents with nearly 11,000 employees. Prior to NYCHA, Kilsys was the Operations Manager for Enterprise Community Partners in New York City overseeing administrative, facility, and IT related directives. While at Enterprise, she established a formal internship program that served as a pipeline for underrepresented students. Before that, Kilsys founded an online stationery and invitation company to fill the void for culturally relevant images. Earlier in her career, Kilsys spent 12 years in the financial services industry serving in various finance and accounting roles. Kilsys graduated with a B.B.A  in Accounting from Hofstra University and resides in New York with her husband and two children.

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Kuba develops and implements strategies designed to strengthen Braven’s existing university partnerships while cultivating and launching new university sites and regions. By leveraging research, data, and design, he supports our regions in ensuring the effectiveness of Braven’s project management and strategic communications with universities.

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Laila coordinates planning and execution of national Post-Accelerator programs, including student skill building events, a talent referral program, and community building events.

LaNiesha joined Braven in July 2022. In her role, she sets vision, strategy, and direction of Braven’s overall product and program experience. She oversees the design, operations, data, insights, and research that informs and improves the program experience and outcomes. Prior to joining Braven staff, LaNiesha spent more than 15 years at Teach For America leading various aspects of teacher training, support, and development. A proud graduate of Florida A&M University, LaNiesha currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and three children.

LaShawn manages a portfolio of high-stakes, shared-value relationships with local Chicago employer and philanthropic partners, delivering a meaningful return on investment to partners, and continued growth of Braven’s outcomes, growth, sustainability, and brand. Also responsible for grants management for the Chicago region.

Latrel oversees the overall student experience at Northern Illinois University (NIU). He manages the facilitation, operations, and logistics for Learning Labs and Braven events where he supports Fellows, Leadership Coaches, Teaching Assistants (TA’s), and professors.

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Lauren is responsible for the instructional design of Braven’s innovation products, including BravenX, Braven Online, and Schwab InternPro. She collaborates with designers, engineers, regional team members, and external stakeholders to deliver and constantly improve the Braven Accelerator for new audiences.

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Lindsay leads a team of Salesforce and data specialists to maintain and continuously improve Braven’s suite of data technology.

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As the Director of Strategic Operations, I am responsible for stewarding the annual organization-wide strategy and goal setting processes, working to ensure that efforts of each team align across org-wide, team, and individual goals. This is achieved through fostering strong cross-functional communication and decision making to ensure operational excellence, scalability, and sustainability of Braven’s systems and processes.

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Lorraine sets vision and oversees the day to day operations of all development and fundraising endeavors, working closely with the CEO and Board. In addition, she leads national and regional external affairs strategies, including Braven’s communications, marketing and thought leadership.

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Mariela Jasso, M.S.Ed. is the Program Manager for National Louis University and BravenX where she gets to work closely with the Braven Accelerator. She runs the facilitation and operations of Learning Labs and Accelerator events where she supports Fellows, Leadership Coaches, Teacher Assistants, and professors.

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Marthe is the founding Director for the Braven Online national pilot. Marthe ensures the successful execution of the Accelerator program, recruits and trains volunteers, and builds and supports partnerships with Braven Online partner organizations, university partners, employer partners, and other stakeholders.

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Matthew is the principal legal officer for Braven, providing advice and counsel on legal, policy, and ethical matters.

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Melanie is a recent graduate from Rutgers Business School and former Teaching Fellow for Braven. She is responsible for assessing the quality of systems and troubleshooting issues as they arise.

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Michele Ybarra leads the strategy, operations and policies for the recruitment and hiring of all Braven staff.

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Michelle joins Braven as a Princeton Project 55 Fellow. She works with the data and research teams to run, maintain, and improve Braven’s evaluation systems and processes.

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Naretha oversees the strategy and execution of Braven’s volunteer recruitment, onboarding, and retention programs. She also supports cross-functional execution of employer partnerships and volunteer programs, serving as an implementation coach, thought partner, and problem solver.

Nina provides executive support and constituent relationship management support to the CEO as well as targeted support for Braven’s Development and Operations team. She manages several special projects like salesforce entry for the development pipeline and national donors, social media execution, and retreat logistics.

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Olivia Greenfield is the External Affairs Manager for the Chicago Region covering National Louis University, BravenX, and Braven Online. She works closely with Braven’s employer partners to build and maintain meaningful relationships that contribute to an equitable future for Fellows. Olivia was raised in Chicago and comes to the Braven team following her experience as a high school teacher.

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Priya Balasubramanian is the Program Manager of Workforce Development for Braven in the Bay Area. She manages an ambitious multi-faceted program designed to professionally support over 1600+ Braven Alumni transition from a 4-year university to their first quality opportunity after graduation. As an immigrant and first-generation college student, Priya values the importance of community and building strong relationships in reaching an equitable future. Her work within Braven embodies a lot of her values surrounding economic equity, equal opportunity and widespread cultural education. ​​As a recent alum of San Jose State class of 2020, Priya is extremely grateful for the professional direction Braven provided for her when she took the course in Fall 2019. As a transfer student from Canada and one struggling to find a career that identified with her authentic self, Braven embraced her insecurities and guided her towards her true passion, supporting the growth of initiatives that seek to equalize the playing field for minority populations. 

In her spare time, Priya loves to travel, ambitiously building her itinerary for a post-pandemic future, hit the beaches of LA with her sibling, and read endless thought spiraling fictional philosophy books.

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Roechelle Croskey is the Program Manager – Accelerator for the Atlanta region.  Roechelle has a Bachelor’s in Human Sciences from Mississippi State University and a Masters in Secondary Education from Jacksonville State University.  Most recently she was a Program Manager with Fulton County Public Schools in Career and Technical Education – Human Services Pathway whose goal is to increase student’s career interest in Human Services post-secondary career plans. As a Program Manager her passion was to empower underrepresented students from low-income families to acquire knowledge, resources, and education to live choice filled lives post-college.

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Shannon leads Braven’s public policy work, helping to further the organization’s strategic objectives at the federal, state, and local levels. This includes increasing brand recognition, cultivating key relationships, and directing advocacy on the importance of career in the college success equation to help support our university partners and regional teams.

She comes to Braven from Capitol Hill and is an alum of Teach For America and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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Sheila joined Braven in 2013 and has worn several hats since. Currently, she is Braven’s first General Counsel where advises on a range of legal matters including partnership agreements, transactions, data privacy, intellectual property, and risk mitigation. Sheila also supports the CEO with strategic external stakeholder relationships and partnerships. She was on the founding Braven team and the founding Executive Director for Braven at Rutgers University-Newark. 

Prior to Braven, she was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell working in the investment management group. Sheila began her career in education as an Education Policy Analyst for the New York City Council Education Committee Chair Eva Moskowitz and was a member of the founding team of Harlem Success Academy Charter School as Director of Instructional Development. She also worked on Eva Moskowitz’s campaign for Manhattan Borough President. 

Sheila graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University where she majored in History and Literature, and has a JD from Harvard Law School. She serves on the Success Academy Leadership Council and StudentsFirstNY’s nonprofit board, and is a founding member of Level, a diverse professional women’s network addressing the racial wealth gap by investing in Black women entrepreneurs. Sheila is a first-generation college graduate and a daughter of immigrants. Originally from Newark, NJ, she now lives in New York city.

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Stephanie oversees all student recruitment for The City College of New York (CCNY), as well as managing Post-Accelerator Fellow workforce strategies for the CCNY cohort.

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Taiesha Smith is the Program Manager – Accelerator for the Atlanta region. Taiesha has a Bachelor in History Education from Georgia State University, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Mercer University, and a Doctorate in Education, Post-Secondary & Adult Learning from Capella University, Minneapolis, MN. Taiesha spent several years of advanced leadership and management in metro-Atlanta K-12 school districts developing teachers, curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Her research background is in the retention and persistence of African American students. She joins us from the University of Georgia where she was the Director of the Office of Experiential Learning responsible for supporting teacher candidates in gaining their certification.

Tess, Director of Core Product, leads the programmatic and instructional design of the Braven Accelerator course and parts of the Post-Accelerator experience. She is focused on constantly improving the Fellow experience guided by Braven’s key outcomes. She works in tandem with regional teams to ensure smooth execution of designs.

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Traci leads the Finance team to ensure Braven’s financial health is in order. In this role, Traci oversees a wide range of finance functions from general ledger accounting, reporting, payroll, and audit to budgeting, financial analytics, and treasury. She also works closely with the Development team on grants management and external reporting.

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Trinity works with the Director of Finance to ensure the financial health of Braven.

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