Justo Méndez Arámburu

Location: Caguas, Puerto Rico

Justo Méndez Arámburu is Founder and Executive Director of Nuestra Escuela, with his wife and Deputy Director, Ana Yris Guzmán Torres. Justo has a Magna Cum Laude Bachelor Degree in Social Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico; Masters Degree in Social Planning and is completing another Master Degree in Non Profit Organizations Administration from the University of the Sacred Heart. Justo’s been awarded the Educator of the Year Recognition by the Legislature of Puerto Rico and the Sor Isolina Ferré Medal to Excellence in Service to Others. His vision was fundamental in developing the public policy that stands for holistic educational services to youth at risk in Puerto Rico. He was promoter of the Alliance for Alternative Education of Puerto Rico and has been able to build a strong network that supports alternative and democratic education all across the country.

Ramon E. Daubon

Location: Washington, D.C.

​Ramon E. Daubon is the Vice President for External Affairs at the Inter American Foundation and an Associate at the Charles Kettering Foundation. He serves on boards and in advisory roles to the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, the Esquel Group Foundation, SAPIENTIS in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA). He has been Executive Director of the Caribbean Environment and Development Institute in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Deputy Assistant Administrator of USAID for its Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, Representative of the Ford Foundation for the Andean and Southern Cone Countries of South America, and Vice President of the National Puerto Rican Coalition. He has been a consultant for the National Hispanic Housing Council, Partners of the Americas, and Casals & Associates. A native of Puerto Rico, he has published extensively on topics about Latin America and the Caribbean and the connection of economic and social development with democracy and the culture of civic engagement.

Robert Davis

Location: Greater New York City, New York

Robert Davis has spent his career in the Financial Services sector. He is the Founder and CEO of The Bridge Companies. This organization was created to take advantage of the reformation of the mortgage industry and to add valuable services to owners of distressed US residential mortgage products. He was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and Head of US Retail Residential Mortgage Lending at Morgan Stanley Home Loans. Prior to 2007, Mr. Davis was an EVP at Fifth Third Bank (Home Equity of America), where he was responsible for expanding the production its Wholesale Prime HELOC business. Earlier, he was an EVP at Countrywide Funding. Mr. Davis also served as President and CEO of ContiMortgage, servicing a $13B portfolio while originating about $12.0B in mortgages per year. Mr. Davis was also an EVP of NationsCredit Financial Services (currently Bank of America).

Santiago Rincón-Gallardo

Location: Ontario, Canada

Santiago Rincón-Gallardo is a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), a consultant for the Mexican Ministry of Education, and a visiting scholar at the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. His academic work explores the relationship between individuals and institutions while seeking to understand and promote educational change as a social movement.

As an educator and an activist, he has worked for over a decade to promote grassroots educational change initiatives in Mexican public schools serving historically marginalized communities. He was the director of Convivencia Educativa, A.C., an organization that catalyzed the transformation of instructional practice from the inside out in hundreds of schools in Mexico and inspired the development of a nationwide policy that seeks to radically transform instructional practice in 9000 schools across the country. He was a tri-chair of the Seventh Annual Alumni of Color Conference at HGSE, and the co-founder and co-director of two student organizations at Harvard: the Latin American and Caribbean Education Network (LACE), and Radical Educators.

Sarah Hinawi

Location: Greater New York City, New York

Sarah Silbert Hinawi is the Executive Director of the Saul Silbert Charitable Trust and The Purple Crayon Center for Learning and Social Innovation. Her career has been driven by a desire to help others find a personal connection to learning and a life path in line with their passions, interests, and beliefs. This vision started during her undergraduate years at Oberlin College, sustained through her early work life in the publishing industry as an Acquisitions Editor at Random House, and led her to a Masters of Education in Counseling from Boston University.

Subsequently, she has been instrumental in the growth and success of a number of student-centered non-profit programs, including the Columbia University TeenScreen Program, and LitWorld. She established her expertise in both college and career planning and non-profit management and administration in helping to develop and run the College Board’s widely used college-planning curriculum, CollegeEd. In addition to running SSCT and The Purple Crayon, Sarah currently serves as a strategic planning consultant to several non-profit organizations.

Kirsten Olson

Location: Greater Boston, Massachusetts

Kirsten Olson is an educational activist, writer, teacher, and Chief Listening Officer at Old Sow Consulting in Brookline, Massachusetts. She works with public, private and alternative schools on issues of school culture, leadership development, and creating more engaging learning environments for everyone in school. She is the author of Wounded By School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up To Old School Culture, which was one of the bestselling books at Teachers College Press last year, and Schools As Colonizers, about the radical school writers of the 1960s.

Kirsten has been a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kennedy School at Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Center for Charter Public School Excellence. She received a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and was an English major at Vassar College. She is interested in bringing educators and critics together to create momentum for educational change. Kirsten's group blog on educational transformation, Cooperative Catalyst, is a place where teachers and administrators are gathering to talk about educational shift.

Stephanie Rogen

Location: Old Greenwich, Connecticut

Stephanie Rogen is a consultant, coach and facilitator to educational and not-for profit leadership. As President and Founder of Greenwich Leadership Partners, her clients include the leadership of nationally recognized independent schools (Blair Academy, the Latin School of Chicago, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Newark Academy), public high schools, universities, a national leadership education organization (The White House Project), several educational foundations and a variety of social service agencies.

Prior to focusing in not for profit, Ms. Rogen consulted to a diversity of major investment and commercial banks as well as several closely held businesses. Ms. Rogen is an active volunteer in her community and local schools. She also designs curriculum and leads workshops for students and young women in leadership. She is a trained facilitator of bereavement groups and works with parents who have lost a child. Ms. Rogen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with a minor in Organizational Behavior from Brown University and a Masters of Education in Administration and Policy from Harvard University. She was born in Oslo, Norway and lived in Norway and England before moving to the United States.