It’s a great privilege to work with my colleagues every day. Individually and collectively, the people at Bellwether offer remarkable ideas, skills, and talents to help build the education field in a way that delivers superior solutions and results.
Our team is made up of experienced education leaders with decades of hands-on experience. Three-quarters of our staff have worked in the classroom, some as teachers, others as school operators, and some in both roles. This direct experience gives us an understanding of the work “on the ground” in schools, districts, and education organizations.
Members of our team have also served as founders, policymakers, government officials, nonprofit and district executives, executive search professionals, organizational development and coaching practitioners, and strategy consultants in top-tier management consulting firms such as Bain & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company, and Deloitte.
Regardless of where we’ve been, all of us at Bellwether are united by a common passion and purpose. Bellwether is a mission-driven nonprofit, and we do this work because we know that when education organizations set and meet lofty goals for students, more kids receive an education that puts them on track for a life of choices and self-determination. And today, I’m thrilled to announce that our team is expanding with the addition of two new leaders who share that commitment to ensuring every child has access to a high-quality education: senior advisers Gwen Baker and Bill Durbin.
Gwen Baker brings over 15 years of experience in education reform, specializing in the use of technology to advance ambitious goals. Before joining Bellwether, Gwen brings direct organizational leadership experience as the co-founder of CoreSpring, Inc., whose mission is to provide the field with access to high-quality formative assessment content and digital authoring tools. Gwen built the organization from an idea into a successful nonprofit, managing all aspects of product development, fundraising, business development and talent management. Prior to her work at CoreSpring, Gwen worked at NewSchools Venture Fund, New Visions for Public Schools, and Teachscape. She began her career consulting at Accenture.
Bill Durbin has worked in education over the past 18 years, focusing on school leader development and management, school performance management, and network growth strategy. At Bellwether, Bill will help school systems define their academic strategies and build the scalable systems to support strong academic performance. For the past two years, Bill served as the chief of schools at DSST Public Schools in Denver, Colorado. In this role, he was responsible for 12 schools and 5,000 students, leadership pipeline management, leader development programming, and the yearly school planning processes. Before DSST, Bill served as YES Prep Public Schools’ head of schools.
Gwen and Bill join Bellwether’s Strategic Advising team, which advises leaders and organizations on their most pressing strategic and operational issues. The Strategic Advising team’s work ranges from supporting entrepreneurs through business plan development, to partnering with established organizations on growth and performance improvement, to assessing new opportunities for impact as the field evolves. I look forward to our work around education technology and academic strategy deepening with Gwen and Bill’s leadership.
Please join me in welcoming our new teammates!
June 28, 2017
Welcoming Our New Senior Advisers
By Bellwether
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