Courtney has focused her career on using innovation to enable prosperity for young people regardless of background. With 15 years of experience in strategy, finance, and operations, she brings a systemic orientation to creating opportunity for learners to thrive.
Prior to co-founding Skillsline, Courtney led market development efforts for Chicago-based nonprofit LEAP Innovations, expanding the reach of its research-backed personalized learning tools to schools across the country.
Simultaneously since 2015, Courtney has led K-12 programming for the annual education innovation-focused ASU+GSV Summit, and founded the Summit’s Leading Educator Scholarship Program, enabling the attendance of thousands of innovative school and district leaders.
Courtney spent the first decade of her career in advisory services: first in management consulting at Bain & Co. and then in investment banking at Credit Suisse, followed by GSV Advisors. She holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated summa cum laude from Southern Methodist University with a BBA in Financial Management and a BA in Anthropology.
Kathy has dedicated her time as an educator fighting to make sure the skills being taught in public schools go beyond just academic studies, so that students have a better chance of competing in a global economy.
She worked for many years at Indian Prairie School District, first as Assistant Superintendent of Elementary, then as Chief Academic Officer.
Jay has been a teacher, coach, and school administrator for the past 18 years, who believes that all students deserve an opportunity to thrive and shine.
He brings extensive experience working with teachers to develop programs that support student awareness and fluency with the human skills needed for life-long success in school and career. He was an early adopter of the Mission Skills Assessment, tracking school’s ability to teach the life skills of Creativity, Curiosity, Teamwork, Time Management, Ethics, and Resilience.
He is a champion of experiential education and students learning by doing. He helped implement the RULER program from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence at his school which focuses on the power of emotional self-regulation in the learning journey for each student.
Jay is passionate about the process of life-long learning, and the individual path all students must travel in life.
PAST & PRESENT:
Throughout her 35-year career, Donna has worked as a certified teacher, consultant, author, and psychologist in the areas of learning, career development and work performance.
Donna has provided counselling, training, assessment, research, writing, evaluation, program development, and performance management services to national and international clients. Donna is noted for her expertise in facilitating the professional development of counsellors, teachers, trainers, and leaders. Her work has been recognized by awards in the areas of authorship, career development, and business.
She has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies and an M.Ed. in Counselling Psychology.
Chris is a pioneer in the convergence of data technology and educational solutions, with a passion for helping learners and organizations take real world action, develop themselves, perform at peak, and achieve their visions of the future.
Chris has spent the majority of his career involved in startup organizations. From developing the classifieds business for IAC’s CitySearch to turnkey Facebook Connect implementations for brand name online commerce sites, Chris focuses on partnering with customers to develop world class products.
Prior to founding SkillsLine, Chris served as Vice President and General Manager of the Myers-Briggs Innovation Labs, leading the development and marketing of award-winning software products recognized for their outsize effect on student retention and success, learner engagement, and ease-of-implementation for organizations.
Chris now turns his expertise to SkillsLine’s partnerships and building the SkillsLine Analytics platform to spur learners and organizations to take real world action, develop themselves, perform at peak, and achieve their visions of the future.
Chris holds an MBA from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, and graduated from Indiana University as a Wells Scholar.