Lesley Brown Rawlings

Vice President of Strategy She/Her

Lesley Brown Rawlings is the Vice President of Strategy. Lesley is a proven education leader with expertise in talent management and human capital practices designed to drive culturally competent, inclusive and transformative academic success for all students. With a passion and commitment for creating pathways to new possibilities and outcomes for our most underserved communities, she delves into the training, recruitment, selection, engagement and development experiences and resources essential to setting students, families and cities up for success. Lesley was most recently the Director of People and Practice Investments for the Memphis Education Fund.

In that role, she focused on securing and coordinating the investments of local and national foundations to drive strategic talent and human capital outcomes in education across the city of Memphis. Previously she led the talent and HR strategy for the ASD-Achievement Schools, as their Chief People Officer, where she ensured the ability to recruit and retain the talent best equipped to serve the students at the state of Tennessee's directly-run turnaround schools.

In addition, Lesley has a degree in Management Information Systems with a minor in Technology and Management from the University of Illinois as well as a MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. She is an alumni of the Broad Residency in Urban Education, a wife and mother, as well as a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated and The Links, Inc.

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