Chief Executive Officer
Lisa is Achievement First’s Chief Executive Officer and works closely with the AF boards and leadership team to ensure academic and operational excellence across our 41 schools and three regions. Her focus is on improving the strength of AF schools and building the infrastructure to enable the network’s continued expansion with quality and shape our future roadmap.
Lisa joined AF in May 2022 as Interim CEO and transitioned to CEO in August 2023. Prior to this, she served as the Interim CEO of Ascend Charter Schools. While there, Lisa led between the organization’s founder and now permanent leader during the global pandemic. With more than thirty years of experience with for-and-non-profits, Lisa developed a deep understanding of all facets of leadership, which includes developing high performing leadership teams, leveraging stakeholder management skills, rebuilding underperforming businesses, leading businesses through integration post-mergers, scaling nonprofits, and transforming organizations after mission shifts. Lisa also served as KIPP’s Chief Program Officer and Director of Network Growth and Chief Customer Officer of the Girl Scouts of the USA. Prior to that, she led businesses in financial services with Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase.
Lisa, a proud Wisconsin native and child of public school educators, has always had a deep and abiding passion for K-12 education. She believes the key to social justice and racial equity is quality education that creates access for all children. She has a bachelor’s degree from Marquette University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Lisa has made New York City her home with her husband and two children.
Interim Superintendent
Karolyn Belcher joined Achievement First in October 2022 as its Interim Superintendent. A seasoned education executive, Karolyn is focused on improving students’ experience in schools and academic achievement across the 41 AF schools.
Prior to this role, Karolyn was the Chief Academic Officer of the Charleston County School District (CSSD). In that role, she was responsible for leading the academic improvement strategy for South Carolina’s second largest school district, which included CCSD’s curriculum adoption, professional learning, COVID recovery planning, and school turnaround in identified Acceleration Schools. Under her leadership, CCSD students outperformed the state average in all state tests in 2022, the first testing year after the pandemic. Additionally, there was significant improvement among the twelve Acceleration schools – with four being removed from the state improvement list in 2023.
Karolyn was President of TNTP and oversaw all the organization’s partnerships with school systems nationwide to address their most pressing student achievement challenges. She was the principal of the John A. Reisenbach Charter School, one of the first three charter schools in New York State, located in central Harlem. She began her career teaching science in New Orleans as a charter corps member of Teach For America
Chief of Support Services
Tiffany is a dedicated and visionary leader who is passionate about improving outcomes for students and helping them achieve their full potential. She is an accomplished licensed clinical social worker and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Clark Atlanta University and a Master of Social Work degree from Howard University.
Tiffany began her career at AF in June of 2020 as the Director of Social Work. In just three years, she has made a significant impact on the organization, expanding the mental health program and network support. Under her leadership, the mental health program grew from 48 to 65 mental health clinicians, and a senior director of social work was added to the team. Additionally, she created a talent pipeline for social workers and counselors with the establishment of an internal clinical supervisor program. Tiffany also codified and strengthened social worker and counselor professional development and practice systems, increasing capacity and strengthening whole school collaboration.
Prior to joining AF, Tiffany served as a middle school social worker at Bedford Stuyvesant Collegiate for six years. During her tenure, she expanded the social work department, built out community partnerships, and created a male mentorship program, which has proven highly successful.
In her free time, Tiffany enjoys bike riding throughout Brooklyn, trying new restaurants, binging podcasts and mindless television shows and traveling.
Chief of Staff
As Chief of Staff, Beth works closely with leadership team members and network leaders to ensure Achievement First achieves its mission by leading organization-wide strategic planning, promoting cross-functional collaboration and alignment, overseeing the execution of critical strategic priorities, and acting as key advisor to the CEO and senior leaders. Prior to joining Achievement First, Beth was the Executive Vice President of Advisory Support at Student Achievement Partners. She also has experience leading content development for The Grow Network/McGraw-Hill, has worked as an independent education consultant, and started her career as a middle school and high school mathematics teacher. In addition, Beth served three terms as an elected member of her local School Board. Beth holds a B.A from Wittenberg University, an M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and is currently completing an Ed.M. in Education Policy and Management from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Chief of Elementary Schools
Kristin comes to this position with almost two decades of experience in education and a dedication and commitment to our students and communities. She is currently a Regional Superintendent and supports both elementary and middle schools. Prior to joining Achievement First in 2021, Kristin was a middle school principal at Success Academy Charter Schools. Before entering into leadership, she has held a number of positions within education, including as a high school advanced placement teacher, instructional coach, and Teach Plus leadership fellow. She holds a B.A. from Carleton College and an M.A. from Columbia University, Teachers College. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring Brooklyn with her partner and children, as well as their dog, Thor.
Chief Operating Officer
As the Chief Operating Officer, Xanthe leads teams involved with school operations, systems and data, information technology, and facilities. Previously, Xanthe served as the Chief Planning and Policy Officer at the NYCDOE’s Division of Early Childhood Education during a period of time when the City’s early childhood system was expanding to serve every four-year old in New York. Xanthe is also the founder of Bronx Charter School for the Arts, and served as the school’s leader for eight years. Xanthe’s previous experience additionally includes working with various educational organizations on initiatives related to teacher evaluation, alternate certification, principal selection, systems design, program design, knowledge management, compliance, policy, expansion, and quality assessment. Xanthe holds a bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies from Stanford University and master’s degrees in teaching and school leadership from CUNY Lehman College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Chief of Middle Schools
In her role as Chief of Middle Schools, Charmayne works to elevate the quality of the middle school academic and student experience, a critical time of transition in child development. She has spent the last 18 years working across K-12 in a variety of roles including teacher, school leader, Regional Superintendent, and Associate Chief of Student Experience. She has experience across founding, fully grown, and turnaround schools. Charmayne started her education career in 2005 and holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies and Masters in both Curriculum and Instruction and Special Education. Charmayne is originally from Brownsville, Brooklyn, a mother of four beautiful children (including a set of fraternal 3-year-old twins) and spent her K-12 education attending public schools. She deeply loves this work and is grateful for the opportunity to continue her life’s calling of dismantling systemic racism within education and beyond. She looks forward to learning, growing, and continuing to support our schools together.
Chief of High Schools
In his role as Chief of High Schools, Dumar leads AF’s approach to improving HS academic results through goal setting, progress monitoring, and performance management and ensuring the development and execution of our long-term high school program vision. Dumar has nearly two decades of experience as an educator and school leader and specific expertise in building successful high schools. At Achievement First, Dumar has served students at AF University Prep HS as an Academic Dean, the Principal of AF Brooklyn High School, and a Regional Superintendent. During his tenure at AF Brooklyn High, he led his school through the height of the pandemic, increased pass rates, AP performance, Org Health, and dramatically reduced the number of suspensions. Before arriving at AF, he served as the Director of College & Career Readiness at New Dawn Charter School, an alternative transfer high school serving over-aged and under-credited students who were not successful in traditional educational settings. Prior to his work at New Dawn, Dumar served in a variety of capacities within education including work as a School Counselor, Writing/Composition teacher, and manager of several non-profit programs. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Dumar was the first male in his family to graduate from college. He obtained his Bachelor of Science from The State University of New York at Albany, and his Master of Science from Grand Canyon University. His experiences growing up in Brooklyn as a first-generation college graduate keep him committed to his community while ensuring youth receive quality education opportunities.
Chief Strategy and Growth Officer
Michael comes to the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer role with thirteen years of teaching, school leadership, and regional leadership experience in Washington D.C and at Achievement First. He served as the Founding Assistant Principal at Rocketship Rise Academy before becoming the Founding Principal at Rocketship Legacy Prep. He then served as the Associate Director of Schools with Rocketship DC, where he led the region’s COVID recovery and reopening, school leader development, and regional operations, while also supporting wellness initiatives, systems-level coordination and strategic planning, and project management across the entire Rocketship Public Schools network. Michael joined Achievement First in March 2022 as the Associate Chief of Staff and has had the opportunity to collaborate with staff across Network Support and within the schools in all three regions on a variety of projects including charter renewals, school contingency planning, portfolio management, and more. Michael is originally from Chicago and now lives in Fairfield, CT with his wife Monica, two daughters Devon (6) and Blair (3), and yellow lab puppy, Clementine.
Chief Financial Officer
As CFO, Neil leads Team Finance and Team Development at Achievement First. Team Finance manages the financial operations functions of revenue, payroll, accounts payable, internal audits and controls, and budgeting and forecasting. Team Development leads all of the philanthropy and government grant functions. Prior to his current role, Neil served as an experienced finance executive in the charter and non-profit space for the last 18 years, specializing in scaling up finance operations. He joined the charter school sector in 2006 with ExEd, a California nonprofit where he managed financial operations for charter school clients. Most recently, he served as the CFO of the Chicago Charter School Foundation, also known as the Chicago International Charter School Network (CICS), serving 14 network campuses. Neil is a graduate of the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business where he earned both his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in business administration.
Chief Academic Officer
In his role as the Chief Academic Officer, John leads the vision and development of academics, curriculum, and quality instruction across K-12. John came to Achievement First (AF) in 2020 as the Vice President of Great Teaching, Middle School (MS) where he supported the design and implementation of both our Greenfield and Classic ms models. He holds a Master’s in Teaching and is completing his dissertation on the acceleration of reading proficiency in secondary students at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Prior to joining the organization, John was a middle school English teacher and assistant principal. John also previously worked in teacher preparation with Urban Teachers at JHU as the National Director of Literacy. He believes access to high-quality, evidence-based, and culturally empowering curricula is a fundamental right for our schools and the communities they serve. He is excited to forward AF’s foundation into the future and looks forward to the partnership with leaders, teachers, and families as we work to continue building an exceptional and cohesive vision for teaching and learning.
General Counsel
Blakely Simoneau joined Achievement First in February 2022 as the General Counsel, where she oversees Team Legal, Team Compliance, and Board Governance and Management. Her teams work across the organization to reduce legal risk, ensure compliance at both the school and network levels, and work directly with all seven boards. Prior to joining Achievement First, Blakely spent the majority of her legal career working in education law with both charter schools and nonprofit special education schools. She is passionate about Achievement First’s mission, and has published extensively in the field of education law and equity. Blakely earned her JD from Boston University School of Law and her BA from the University of Colorado.