Commission Team Leadership

Amy Bellinger

Amy Bellinger

Director of Programs and Transition

Bio

Amy is Director of Programs and Transition for the Education Commission. She established and is leading the Education Workforce Initiative (EWI) and High Touch High Tech (HTHT) Initiative and is directing the Education Commission’s strategy during its transition period. Previously, Amy was Head of International Education at Ark where she developed and implemented Ark’s first international education strategy, and Deputy Chief Executive of Future Leaders, a UK-focused school leadership organisation. Amy’s previous career was as a management consultant for Deloitte, IBM, and PwC. She has a BA Hons degree in Geography with European Study from Exeter University and is based in Bristol, UK.

Pedro Alba

Pedro Alba

Senior Director, International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd)

Bio

Pedro Alba is CEO and Founding Partner of BlueOrange Consulting. Blue Orange has provided services to multilateral development institutions and banks and civil society organizations in the areas of innovative development finance, setting up new development facilities and budget reform.

Previously, Pedro was the Vice President Budget, Performance Review and Strategic Planning of the World Bank and was in that capacity responsible for budget and strategic planning for the World Bank, as well as the General Services Department reporting directly to the Group CFO. Most important management responsibilities included overall oversight of the World Bank budget of about US$ 3.8 billion, and the formulation and supervision of the annual strategic planning process for the World Bank. Pedro was also a member of senior management committees of the World Bank including the Senior Management Team (that advised the President on all key corporate decisions) and the finance and risk committee (that advised the CFO on all financial decisions). As Vice President, Pedro was responsible for key reform initiatives such as the design and implementation of a new strategic planning and budgetary process, the reform of the resource management function in the World Bank, and a significant 8 percent cut to the Group budget.

Prior to this position, Pedro has served in a variety of positions in the World Bank, including as Country Director in the Russian Federation, in the Southern Cone of Latin America, and in several fragile states in Africa. Pedro has a PhD in Applied Economics from Cornell University, has published both academic and policy reports on financial integration and macroeconomic policy, and has lectured in universities in Spain, USA, and Russia.

Chris Greenwood, PhD

Chris Greenwood, PhD

Head of Development

Bio

Dr. Christopher Greenwood is the Head of Development of the Education Commission. Prior to joining the Commission Chris worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Fauna & Flora International in Cambridge, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in London, the British Museum, and consultancies nationally and internationally.

Chris is a specialist in the financing of non-profit organizations and socially-focused businesses. He originated and developed the ICRC’s Humanitarian Impact Bond and has generated financing for numerous organizations in places as various as Brazil, Lebanon, Kenya, Greece, Norway, Switzerland, India and Singapore (amongst others). He is particularly interested in financial services and investment responses to persistent social challenges.

Chris was educated at King’s College, London and Trinity College, Cambridge and is also a Kennedy Scholar from Harvard University. He lives in Geneva with his partner and two teenaged children.

Betsy Hanlon

Betsy Hanlon

Head of Finance and Operations

Bio

Betsy Hanlon is the Head of Finance and Operations and is based in the Washington, DC area. In this role she is responsible for financial reporting and analysis, budgeting and forecasting, financial and other operations, and grants support. Betsy has held financial, strategic, and administrative positions with private, public, and nonprofit companies. She served as Interim CFO at CAF America in 2015, 2019, and 2020, and also served as Advisor to the CEO until 2021. From 2016 to April, 2019 she served as CFO and Director of Finance and Administration for Climate Advisers, Inc. Earlier in her career she was associated with prominent public relations, education, telecommunications, biomedical, and law firms in the DC area. She began her career at Price Waterhouse in Philadelphia.

Betsy has also provided pro bono services to DC nonprofits through Compass DC and served on the Board of Center City Public Charter Schools from 2013-2022, the final two years as Chair. A graduate of The College of William and Mary with a BA in Philosophy, Betsy holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Nonprofit Management Certificate from Georgetown University.

Strategic Advisors

Theo Sowa

Theo Sowa

Strategic Advisor

Bio

Born in Ghana, Theo Sowa has lived and worked in many countries in Africa, Europe, and North America. Her work includes advisory roles to African and other international women rights, children’s rights and justice activists and leaders, as well as policy development and advocacy in a range of national and international organisations and agencies.

Currently she is Co-Chair of the Equality Fund; member of the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s African Advisory Board; Patron of Evidence for Development; and board member of the UBS Optimus Foundation; the Graça Machel Trust; and OSIWA (Open Society Initiative for West Africa).

See her Tedx talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfIQgPb7pQs

Kevin Watkins

Kevin Watkins

Strategic Advisor

Bio

Kevin is currently a visiting Professor of Practice at the London School of Economics. He was CEO of Save the Children UK from 2016 to 2021, having previously led the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Kevin worked for seven years in the United Nations, first as lead head of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, where he was lead author of flagship reports on climate change, water and sanitation, and inequality, and then as Director of UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report. Prior to working at the UN Kevin worked at Oxfam GB, where he was head of research. He has authored a number of books, reports, and articles on development issues, including education, international trade, and public health, and is a regular commentator in the media. Kevin has held visiting positions at the Washington-based Brookings Institution and the Global Economic Governance Programme at Oxford University. He holds a D.Phil in modern Indian history from Oxford University.

Experts and Staff

Kate Anderson

Kate Anderson

Senior Advisor, DeliverEd

Bio

Kate Anderson is project lead for DeliverEd, a UK FCDO-funded partnership with the University of Oxford which seeks to broaden the evidence base on delivery approaches in education. Kate is also the founder of Unbounded Associates, a Washington, DC-based firm that supports governments, donors, UN agencies, NGOs, and researchers to find strategic ways to increase impact, communicate successes, and chart new paths in education. She has more than 18 years of experience in education policy, research, and practice.

Prior to joining the Education Commission, Kate was an associate fellow at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution where her leadership on the Learning Metrics Task Force contributed to the inclusion of learning indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals. Earlier in her career, she designed, implemented, and evaluated training programs for teachers and early childhood providers in the US and Pakistan. She has published numerous reports, peer-reviewed journal articles, and has been interviewed on BBC World News. Ms. Anderson holds a M.P.P. in International Policy and Development from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Psychology from Pepperdine University.

Sam Awuku, Ph.D.

Sam Awuku, Ph.D.

Head of Country Engagement, Education Workforce

Bio

Dr. Sam Awuku is the Project Lead of the Education Commission’s Innovative Pedagogies Project (IPP) and brings to the role over 30 years of working experience in the education and development sectors across sub-Saharan Africa, the United Kingdom, and Poland. Since 2015, Sam has been supporting Ghana’s Ministry of Education through T-TEL as a Key Adviser for Policy, Leadership, Institutional Development, ICT, and Communications that has positioned him to provide strategic advice to the Ministry and its agencies on school curriculum and related policies, leadership in teacher education institutions, emergency remote teaching and learning, and partnerships with external organizations like the Association for the Development Education in Africa (ADEA). Sam was the Global Director for the Centre for Development and Public Engagement with the African Institute for Mathematical Science – Next Einstein Initiative (AIMS-NEI) Foundation during which he led the Centre’s development efforts of the Foundation engaging with country ministers and presidents leading to the establishment of AIMS centres in Tanzania and Rwanda. As a consultant, Sam has provided high-level strategic positioning services to the Education Development Trust, Right to Play, ImpactEd International, and the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) among others through TeachAid Consulting Ltd., a consultancy company that he co-founded in 2009.

Sam is the Board President for the Ghana Society for Education Technology and a government nominee on the Council of the the University of Cape Coast. He is a member of the Institute of Directors, UK. Sam holds a teachers’ certificate (mathematics teaching) with distinction and BA (Hons) in Social Science (Economics and Sociology) from the University of Cape Coast; MA in Inclusive Education from the University of Reading; MBA from Trinity College; MA in Education Programme with mathematics focus from London South Bank University; and Ph.D. in Education Technology and Development Policy from the UCL Institute of Education.

Jack Bohen

Jack Bohen

Executive Assistant

Bio

Jack is the Executive Assistant at the Education Commission and is currently based in Washington DC. He manages the Director’s calendar and schedule in addition to supporting and coordinating teams across a number of the Commission’s workstreams. Prior to joining the Education Commission, Jack worked at Year Up, an organization dedicated to closing the opportunity divide for young adults, and as an elementary and middle school teacher at Horizons, an educational enrichment program for underserved students. He is passionate about developing innovative educational solutions in pursuit of a more equitable and opportunity-filled world. Jack graduated from Williams College with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, with a concentration in International Relations.

Emma Cameron

Emma Cameron

Research Associate, Education Workforce

Bio

Emma is an education specialist with over seven years of international development experience in research, policy design, and teaching. Her work focuses mainly on early childhood development, teacher professional development, and girls’ education, and she has field experience in countries across Sub-Saharan Africa. She is a current consultant for the Center for Global Development, the World Bank, and the Education Commission. Previously, she was a secondary teacher in Rwanda for two years as part of the Peace Corps and a primary teacher for two years in the US and Tanzania. Emma holds a Master’s in International Education Policy from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Bachelor’s in Education and Cultural Anthropology with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa from Middlebury College.

Madelyn Cunningham

Madelyn Cunningham

Manager, What Works Hub

Bio

Madelyn is the Strategic Engagement Manager and Senior Analyst for Finance and is based in Washington, DC. In this role, she works on the Global Education Forum (GEF) and the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd).

Previously, she worked at the Brookings Institution, where she did research into financing for development and oversaw the Brookings Blum Roundtable on Global Poverty. She has also worked at the National Association of Independent Schools and the Social Progress Imperative. Madelyn has a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.A. in International Trade and Investment Policy from George Washington University.

Katie Cuthbert

Katie Cuthbert

Project Manager, Communications and Advocacy

Bio

Katie supports the Commission on comms and events. She is currently based in the UAE, with ten years of experience working in communications across the MENA region.

Katie has extensive experience working with high-level government departments on strategy, communications, and events. Prior to joining the Commission, she was a senior project manager working with the Prime Minister of Dubai’s Office and their Food Security Initiative, Smart Dubai and the city’s digital transformation, and Expo 2020 Dubai.

Gisela Gasparian

Gisela Gasparian

Manager, Innovative Finance

Bio

Gisela started her career at McKinsey & Co., working with education projects in public sector, foundations, and the private sector. She was a director at Somos Educação, the largest K12 education company in Latin America. She started the publishing house Ubu Editora with two friends and recently was the COO of UN Live, the Museum for the UN. She holds a Master’s in International Development from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a BA in Business from EAESP-FGV, Brazil. Originally from Brazil, she currently lives in Copenhagen with her family.

Katie Godwin

Katie Godwin

Research Lead, Education Workforce

Bio

Katie is from the United States and currently based in Madrid, Spain, working as a consultant in global education research and policy. She oversees the Education Workforce Initiative’s research agenda and activities. She led development of EWI’s flagship report, Transforming the Education Workforce, and also supports EWI’s in-country work to develop education workforce reform options with Ghana, Sierra Leone and Vietnam. Previously, Katie worked in Nashville, Tennessee leading immigrant and refugee education services with non-governmental organizations.

Katie graduated from Belmont University with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Russian. She holds a Masters of Education degree in International Education Policy and Management from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and completed Columbia Law School’s graduate program at the Center for Public Research and Leadership.

Abril Ibarra

Abril Ibarra

Project Lead, DeliverEd

Bio

Abril leads the DeliverEd initiative, a UK FCDO-funded partnership with the University of Oxford, Blavatnik School of Government, which seeks to broaden the evidence base on delivery approaches in education, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

Prior to joining the Education Commission, Abril worked as an Education Specialist for 10 years at the World Bank where she provided policy advice and strategic guidance in education related-issues to middle- and low-income countries, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean. She also has firsthand experience as a teacher in Mexico and the UK. Her main professional interests are related to effective education policy delivery in developing countries, school autonomy and accountability, teacher education, and multicultural and bilingual education. Abril holds a B.Ed. from the Universidad Panamericana and an MSc. in Comparative and International Education from the University of Oxford.

Neelofar Javaid

Neelofar Javaid

Senior Advisor, DeliverEd

Bio

Neelofar brings over 20 years of wide-ranging experience working for UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), formerly Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and multiple government, private sector, civil society, and development partners in numerous education-related contexts. She brings her strengths in policy analysis, developing and enacting institutional and structural reforms from the primary to tertiary levels, building relationships, and strengthening the ability of governments to deliver on reform programs.

Katherine Kullman

Katherine Kullman

Manager, School Health and Nutrition

Bio

Katherine Kullman is the Senior Communications and Partnerships Analyst for the Education Commission and is currently based in New York City. In this role she leads on developing and maintaining the strategic partnerships of the Commission, while identifying engagement opportunities to achieve organization and project goals. She currently leads on the coordination of the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) and Global Education Forum (GEF).

Prior to joining the Education Commission, Katherine worked as an Early Childhood Specialist at Briya Public Charter School in Washington, DC, a two-generation education model serving recent immigrants that embraces a comprehensive approach to care to enact social change. She most recently worked in the office of the Ambassador at the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates helping to lead local and international foundation relations. She is a proud alumna of AmeriCorps and passionately believes that local service can have global impact.

Katherine holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Skidmore College and earned a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.

Charry Lee

Charry Lee

Project Analyst, Delivery and Education Workforce

Bio

Charry is the Senior Project Coordinator based in Washington, DC for DeliverEd, an initiative to gather evidence and create a community of engagement to build understanding of how to most effectively implement policies that address the learning crisis; and for the Education Workforce Initiative, rethinking education workforce to equip students with adaptable skills for the 21st century. Charry provides support on project and research coordination and implementation of process to develop and disseminate reports, events, tools, and resources. Prior to joining the Education Commission, Charry was a Researcher for the Public Diplomacy Department at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea and a Project Coordinator for the Bridge International, where she managed multiple international grants supporting aspiring entrepreneurs in developing countries. Charry graduated from Flagler College with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary and Special Education and holds a Masters of Education degree in International Education Policy and Management from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Rose Sagun

Rose Sagun

Manager, Global HTHT Consortium

Bio

Rose manages the Education Commission’s High Touch High Tech initiative, which leverages AI to deliver personalized learning at scale. She has 10 years of experience in education, EdTech, and learning innovations. She developed an award-winning learning product for a Forbes Global conglomerate and managed a range of online learning experiences: for adults in corporate as well as children in early years & K-12.

Rose is a global-thinking human and proudly Filipino, graduating with honors from the University of the Philippines and Harvard University for international education policy and education innovation. She serves as the Co-Chair of Harvard Alumni for Education- San Francisco Bay Area chapter.

Véronique Sauvat

Véronique Sauvat

Strategic and Partnerships Lead, Sustainable Financing Initiative, School Meals Coalition

Bio

Véronique joined the Education Commission as a secondee of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support the work of the Sustainable Financing Initiative of the School Meals Coalition. The Coalition was set up in 2021 at the UN Food System Summit to recognize globally the importance of school meals for the learner’s health and well-being in the aftermath of the COVID crisis. The Coalition has convened more than 66 countries and 65 partners around advocacy, research, and political commitments for the expansion of school feeding programs. The Sustainable Financing Initiative for school health and nutrition, led by the Education Commission under the umbrella of the Coalition, is working with governments and donors to research and implement sustainable financing solutions to expand school feeding programs.

Véronique has more than 30 years of experience in the development field. She worked for 10 years at the OECD Development Centre before joining the Agence Française de Developpement where she successively managed the knowledge management team and the economic and social research teams. She then joined the education technical team where she oversaw education and TVET program design and financing in Mauritania, Senegal, South Africa, and Vietnam before becoming the team manager. In parallel she has lectured on development issues and project management at the Paris Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris I, and Paris V University, among others. She currently serves on the Board of France Education International and Montpellier Supagro.

Véronique holds a Bachelor’s in Contemporary and Medieval History, a Master’s in Political Sciences from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, and a Master’s in Urban Development and Town Planning in developing countries from the Institut d’Urbanisme de Paris.

Nina Stochniol

Nina Stochniol

Head of Innovative Finance

Bio

Nina is the Project Lead for the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) at the Education Commission and is currently based in Amsterdam.

Nina brings over 15 years of strategy, finance, and delivery experience in emerging markets spanning both the private and public sectors. Her prior experience includes investing in the private education sector in Africa as an Investment Officer for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), serving as the Country Head and Deputy Country Head for the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative in Malawi and Rwanda respectively, and working as an Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs of Palestine. She has also got her hands dirty with several social sector start-ups.

Nina has lived and worked in India, Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, and Palestine, and loves to explore unfamiliar corners of the globe.

Nina earned her BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford and holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPAID/ID) from Harvard University.

Daniela Ukuni

Daniela Ukuni

IFFed Project Coordinator

Bio

Daniela Ukuni is the project coordinator for the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) at the Education Commission and based in London, UK. She is passionate about education, international development, and diversity and inclusion opportunities for underrepresented groups. Previously, she was a project coordinator at Unbounded Associates supporting on communications, advocacy, events, and stakeholder engagement on various projects across the global education sector with NGOs, governments, donors, and UN agencies. She also worked as a native English teacher with the English Program in Korea (EPIK) in Daegu, South Korea from 2017 to 2019. Daniela holds a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University and an M.A. in International Communications and Development from City, University of London.

Nick Vaughan

Nick Vaughan

Special Advisor on Innovative Finance

Bio

Nick is a macroeconomist with 30 years’ experience including 15 years in the UK Finance Ministry (HMT).  He has a comparative advantage in all aspects of economic policy, financial markets, National Accounts and technical skills e.g. macromodelling. On request by the UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, Nick originated and developed the International Finance Facility (IFF) in two years to indicative AAA credit rating in 2003; led technical discussions on IFF for HMT with Goldman Sachs, World Bank, S&P, Eurostat, and French and German Finance Ministries – the IFF went on to become the IFFIm. He was then moved on promotion to develop the macroeconomic model for HMT and the economic and fiscal forecasts it supported. In December 2008 Nick was promoted to Deputy Director of the Economics Group to lead the UK economic and fiscal forecasts through the GFC for HMT along with an extraordinary range of policy advice. In 2014 he left HMT on promotion to Director of National Accounts and Economic Statistics with responsibility for producing all UK economic statistics including the financial accounts and Balance of Payments that in other countries are often produced by the central bank; in parallel to that role he also developed and defined a transformation program for National Accounts that was then funded by HMT. In 2016 he took on the role of Chief Economist for the UK statistics office in addition to the responsibility for compiling the statistics, including public sector finances that deal with the classification of financial commitments by governments and public corporations. Subsequently in 2018 Nick was approached for the role of Chief Economic Adviser for Jersey, a UK crown dependency, leading on all economic policy advice e.g. Brexit and COVID with extraordinary policies to support the economy and also fiscal stimulus, along with economic and fiscal forecasting.

Education Commission Asia

Ye Rin Lim

Ye Rin Lim

Consultant

Bio

Former) Head Teacher, Rainbow Hill Center for Multicultural Family Former) Intern, Resto du Coeur Master’s student, Sciences Po Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris