Elisabeth Stock
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Elisabeth Stock built CFY from a nascent non-profit in 1999 to a National Leader in improving the home learning environment of low-income families. CFY has been recognized by the Drucker Foundation and by the Tech Museum in San Jose, California for its innovative use of technology in education. Recognized as an expert in her field, Elisabeth has been awarded a life-long Ashoka fellowship and has served as an advisor to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the NYC Department of Education. In 2007, she was also appointed to serve on the New York City Broadband Advisory Committee. Elisabeth has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on National Public Radio and has published a policy paper with the Benton Foundation. Prior to her work at CFY, Elisabeth served as a White House Fellow (1996-1997), where she was the principal architect of a program that enables Federal agencies to donate surplus computers directly to needy schools. She also worked at the Vera Institute of Justice and helped the Open Society Institute start the After-School Corporation. She was a high school teacher for two years while a Peace Corps volunteer and later worked for the World Bank on appropriate technology in Africa, traveling extensively and publishing numerous articles. Elisabeth served as a member of the MIT Board of Trustees (1997-2002) and is the youngest individual ever to be appointed to the MIT Executive Committee (2000-2002). She continues to serve on committees for the Institute. Elisabeth was honored by Crain’s New York Business in 2001 as one of 40 New Yorkers under 40 shaping the city. She holds four degrees from MIT: two bachelor’s degrees—one in engineering and one in writing—and two master’s degrees—one in urban planning and one in technology and policy. She also holds a patent for a medical device.

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Mark Malaspina
President

Mark joined CFY in May 2009. He is responsible for managing CFY’s city directors, deepening CFY’s relationships with school districts and software partners, and driving CFY’s program innovations and research agenda. As the former President of The Grow Network, an education company he co-founded in 2000 and sold to McGraw-Hill in 2004, Mark brings strong experience in education to this role. Under Mark’s leadership, Grow served more than 20 million students in the U.S. and internationally and demonstrated its impact in differentiated instruction and parent engagement through studies by nationally recognized research organizations, such as the Consortium for Policy Research in Education and the Center for Children & Technology. At Grow, Mark helped develop a patented analytical system that infers students’ strengths and needs in order to support effective instruction. Mark also has broad experience working with low-income communities. As a Skadden Fellow at the Lawyers Alliance for New York, Mark provided guidance to local organizations developing innovative economic development programs in low-income neighborhoods. Since 2000, he has served on the board of the New York City Financial Network Action Consortium, a CDFI Intermediary that supports community development credit unions. Previously, Mark has worked with public housing tenant organizations in Atlanta and New Haven and helped establish small business lending programs in Chicago. He served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Coto Brus, Costa Rica, and is fluent in Spanish. After receiving his J.D. from Yale Law School, Mark clerked for Judge Phyllis Kravitch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He also has an M.P.A. in Economics and Public Policy from Princeton University and a B.A. from Yale College, where he received the Hadley Prize for outstanding scholarship in the Social Sciences.

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Sunil Bheda
Managing Director, PowerMyLearning

Sunil Bheda is the Managing Director of PowerMyLearning at CFY. In this role, Sunil leads the strategy for, and development of, PowerMyLearning.com, CFY’s K-12 learning platform. This free platform enables students, teachers, and parents to find and use high-quality digital learning activities to propel learning and student engagement. Prior to joining CFY, Sunil led the development and implementation of McGraw-Hill Higher Education’s flagship digital platforms, Connect and Create suites, which together have more than four million users annually. These platforms provide McGraw-Hill Higher Education with a central digital strategy and vehicle for distributing more digital products and services to improve student learning and help teachers be more efficient. Sunil began his career as a technology consultant for large companies including PwC, Prudential Bank, ESPN, NPR, and 3 (Hutchison, UK). Sunil earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering/STAC from Georgia Tech.

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Krishan Patel
Director of Product Management

Krishan brings to the team strong experience in managing large, innovative technology projects. Since joining CFY in 2009, Krishan has been primarily responsible for planning the future direction of CFY’s programmatic offerings, including our online strategy. Most recently he was an Associate at Diamond Management and Technology Consultants, where he helped lead several innovative technology and strategy projects: (1) The development of a plan for the City of New York for increasing the availability and adoption of broadband in order to stimulate economic development and improve education, healthcare, quality of life, and the delivery of government services, (2) The delivery of a student information system for Chicago Public Schools to provide parents, educators and administrators with more accessible student data and analytics, (3) The development of Avon Cosmetics’ web 2.0 and mobility strategy to innovate its online presence. Krishan is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he earned a B.S. in Economics.

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Bill Rappel
National Director of the Affiliate Network and Legislative Affairs

Bill is responsible for building CFY’s affiliate network and directing CFY’s legislative affairs efforts. Prior to moving to CFY’s national office, Bill served for six years as CFY-NYC’s Program Director, during which he increased CFY’s school partnerships more than six-fold; built a robust application process for selecting schools; and successfully built a strong relationship with the New York City Council, from which CFY receives significant funding each year. Prior to CFY, Bill worked at Organic, an Internet consulting firm, and was a consultant for a Rockefeller Family Fund project where he conducted site visits for the America Online Foundation’s Digital Divide Initiative. Bill has a master’s degree in urban planning from Columbia University.

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Ronald Southard
Director of Finance and Administration

Ron joined CFY in December of 2009. He is responsible for managing CFY’s Finance Department and administrative functions. Since moving to New York in 1994, he has worked as the finance leader in several small to medium sized non-profits as well as filling the role of Chief Financial Officer for the American Lung Association. While at the Lung Association Ron led the design and implementation of an award winning accounting system that tracked and consolidated the finances of the American Lung Association’s twenty-five independently incorporated regional offices throughout the U.S. Prior to coming to New York City, Ron worked in economic development in Western New York. He grew up in Buffalo, NY and has a liberal arts degree from the State University of New York.

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Philip Vlahakis
Managing Director of Development and Communications

Phil joined CFY in June, 2010 and brings over 20 years of experience in providing valuable educational services. Prior to this role, Phil served as Vice President for Kaplan K12 Learning Services, the division of Kaplan Inc. dedicated to propelling student achievement in school districts facing the greatest challenges. At Kaplan K12, Phil was a member of the senior leadership team responsible for the rapid growth of the division from its initial start-up phase. Among his accomplishments, he oversaw the development and launch of some of the division’s most successful products and programs and established a dedicated RFP process and department to deliver winning proposals for the division’s largest opportunities. Prior to Kaplan, Phil served as Director for Executive Education programs at Columbia Business School which provided a range of professional development programs for Fortune 500 companies and their managers worldwide. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Binghamton University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. He is also proud to be a product of the New York City Public School system and dedicated to improving the quality of public education for all students.

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Erin Walker
Managing Director of the Digital Learning Program

Erin Walker is the Managing Director of the Digital Learning Program at CFY. In this role, Erin leads the program innovation process and manages the national operations that provide support to CFY’s regional program teams. Prior to joining CFY, Erin worked on the Assessment team at the New York City Department of Education where she helped develop assessment programs aligned to the Common Core Learning Standards. Erin began her career as a special education teacher working with adolescents overcoming learning and emotional disabilities, and she subsequently has served as Executive Director of LINK, National Director and General Manager at Kaplan K-12 Learning Services, and VP Professional Learning Services at Teachscape. Erin earned a B.A. in Human Services and a M.A. in Special Education from the George Washington University.

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Cindy Menz-Erb
CFY-New York City Executive Director

Cindy Menz-Erb is the Executive Director for CFY-New York City. Previously, Cindy has served in important leadership roles for CFY-NYC, both as Director and Program Director, in which she has led key improvements in both operations and program delivery. Before coming to CFY, Cindy started up the New York City operations of the Center for Student Missions (CSM), an organization she had worked with in Washington, DC and Chicago. CSM coordinates both short-term service-learning trips for junior and senior high school students and longer-term service opportunities for college students. In her role as Director of CSM’s NYC office, she was responsible for the overall management of the site, including creating partnerships with community organizations and developing service-learning programming and curriculum. Cindy has also worked in the HIV/AIDS sector doing recruitment and event logistics for AIDS walk fundraisers in NYC and Seattle. Cindy holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications and a master’s degree in Community Development from North Park University in Chicago.

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Joshua Stager
CFY-New York City Managing Director

Joshua Stager is the Managing Director for CFY-New York City. Previously, Josh joined CFY-NYC as a Senior Program Manager and played a significant role in helping to lead NYC’s successful expansion under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. Prior to joining CFY, Josh implemented and advanced the Voluntary Public School Choice Grant in NYC (a partnership between the NYC Department of Education, NYC’s City Hall, and the U.S. Department of Education to increase the number of transfers for No Child Left Behind-eligible students to high-performing schools). He is currently an adjunct professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, previously was an adjunct professor at Teachers College, and also taught high school English in the city. Josh holds an M.Ed., Public School Leadership and an Ed.D., Public School Leadership, both from Teachers College, Columbia University. He also holds a M.A. (Honors) in English Education from The City College of New York.

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Jeanne Artime
CFY-Atlanta Executive Director

Jeanne Artime is the Executive Director of CFY-Atlanta. Jeanne oversees operations, development activities, and CFY’s Digital Learning Program in Atlanta, while strengthening relationships with community partners, school districts, and political leaders. Jeanne joined CFY as one of the founding members of CFY-Atlanta in 2007, successfully establishing the Digital Learning Program within the greater-Atlanta community. Before joining CFY, Jeanne was Program Director for the non-profit Children’s Literature Outreach Program, which provides weekly literature lessons and access to a specialized book library for low-income elementary school students. Jeanne began her career as a systems analyst with Interleaf, Inc. and has held various senior account management, marketing, and product management positions with various software companies, including Interleaf Inc., MapInfo Corporation, and Lotus Development Corporation. Jeanne holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Art Design from Duke University.

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Richard Hicks
CFY-Atlanta Director, Technology & Operations

Richard Hicks is CFY’s Director, Technology & Operations and is responsible for soliciting and acquiring computer equipment at the national level, setting up refurbishing operations in expansion cities, ensuring the quality of CFY’s technical operations in all the cities in which we operate, and directing the technical aspects of developing a new image for CFY’s Home Learning Center each year. Previously, Richard was a Director of Information Technology at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville, Georgia where he was responsible for many initiatives to bring the campuses to the forefront of technological advancement, including providing insight for the technology design of Georgia Military College’s new and existing facilities. Richard holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Information Systems from Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville and an Associate of Arts in Criminal Justice from Georgia Military College in Milledgeville.

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Neil Spears
CFY-Los Angeles, Co-Director

Neil Spears is the Co-Director of CFY-Los Angeles focusing on external relationships and sustainability. Before joining CFY as the Senior Training Manager in the summer of 2010, Neil was a sixth grade teacher and Teach For America corps member at El Sereno Middle School in east LA where he led his students to significant academic gains in the classroom. While teaching, Neil was also the school-side liaison for CFY’s partnership with El Sereno, playing a central role in CFY’s successful launch at our first partner school in Southern California. Prior to teaching, Neil was a Fellow in the innovation department at the headquarters of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life where he helped spearhead a revolutionary national peer-engagement initiative. A Southern California native, Neil holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in education policy and management from Harvard University.

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Ingrid Nicole Byrd
CFY-Los Angeles, Co-Director

Ingrid Nicole Byrd is the Co-Director of CFY-Los Angeles focusing on internal program operations. Ingrid has over 15 years of non-profit and for-profit education management and education reform experience. Prior to joining the CFY team, Ingrid served as the Deputy Director at the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems, running the Broad Superintendents Academy, an executive management program that recruits, trains, and places non-traditional superintendent candidates and stand-out career educators into superintendent positions in the nation’s underserved urban districts. Also in the education reform space, Ingrid managed Teach For America’s second largest corps of teachers as Senior Managing Director of Programs in Los Angeles, placing teachers in low-income communities and helping to create a pipeline of leaders committed to educational equity and excellence. Prior to this non-profit work, Ingrid ran vocational colleges along the West Coast for Kaplan Higher Education Corporation and managed a territory of after-school K-12 tutoring centers spanning northern and southern California for SCORE! Educational Centers (now known as Kaplan Tutoring). Ingrid holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from Stanford University and a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management.

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Grainger Marburg
CFY-San Francisco Bay Area, Executive Director

Grainger is the Executive Director for CFY-San Francisco Bay Area. He has over 20 years of combined experience in education, management consulting, philanthropy, and non-profit management. Grainger most recently served for six years as the Executive Director of Peninsula Bridge, a non-profit that serves motivated low-income middle school students. Highlights of his past experience include a two-year teaching assignment in Micronesia as a Peace Corps Volunteer, managing a comprehensive neighborhood improvement initiative in east San Jose with the former Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and successfully turning around a local nonprofit. Social justice and equity issues have strongly informed Grainger’s employment choices. He is an advocate of networking and leveraging existing community resources (i.e., not re-inventing the wheel unnecessarily) and discerning the shared objectives among people and entities from the private, public, and social sectors. Grainger has a B.A. from Hampshire College and an Ed.M. from Harvard University.

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