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McKinsey is committed to improving lifelong learning opportunities and outcomes around the globe by collaborating with clients on their top-of-mind issues while always keeping equity at the forefront. Our teams include former teachers, institutional leaders, policymakers, and researchers with deep expertise across all levels of education from early childhood and K-12, to higher education and workforce development.

We serve education institutions and systems, governments, philanthropists, investors, service providers, and vocational training providers, complementing our hands-on work with original research to allow us to better understand the sector’s toughest challenges, and build new capabilities to help solve them.

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How COVID-19 caused a global learning crisis

COVID-19 and education: The lingering effects of unfinished learning

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Duwain Pinder

Partnerohio - columbus.

Jimmy Sarakatsannis

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Dirk Schmautzer

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The Top 25 Education Consultants and Leaders of 2023

The Consulting Report is pleased to announce The Top 25 Education Consultants and Leaders of 2023. Education consulting plays a vital role in addressing and adapting to the ongoing disruptions within the education sector. Consequently, it has emerged as a burgeoning sub-sector in the consulting industry with potential for significant growth. These consulting leaders found in this year's awards cater to various areas such as education policy, higher education, and K-12 education. Their expertise aims to enhance operational efficiency in educational institutions and related companies, leading to improved student outcomes, optimized governance, and increased fundraising success. Furthermore, the exceptional men and women on this year’s list are frequently sought after by educational institutions to strategize and prepare for long-term transformations and changes within the industry.

One of the top-notch education consultants featured on this year's roster is Roy Mathew, a Principal at Deloitte, where he leads the Higher Education Consulting practice for his 175 year-old firm. With more than 20 years of consulting and industry experience across both private and public sector clients, Mathew has led many of Deloitte’s largest Higher Education transformation programs that span strategy, implementation, and operations. Similarly, this year we have Dayna Aravich, the VP of U.S. Education Industry at Gartner. Notably, Aravich also serves as the Chair & Board Operations for Women in Sales at Gartner, where she empowers over 2,000 women in sales. Meanwhile, Jean Demchak, the Global Leader of Marsh's Education Industry Practice, has dedicated the last 29 years to specializing in the education industry.

Please join us in celebrating The Top 25 Education Consultants and Leaders of 2023.

Andre Dua is a Senior Partner at consulting giant McKinsey & Co. His expertise lies in company transformation, higher education, economic development, innovation, the future of work, and state and local government. In higher education, he has served more than 35 public and private universities and systems in the US and across the world. His higher education work includes: board governance; academic medical enterprise governance and performance improvement; system, university, and school strategy; center and institute design; research strategy; access and completion; and administrative operations improvement.

Additionally, he was a member of the McKinsey Global Institute Council, McKinsey’s globally renowned think-tank, and he also founded McKinsey Academy, which designs large-scale capability-building programs to unlock the potential of people in leading institutions. Dua was also the convenor of the Taskforce on Higher Education and Opportunity, a group of 37 organizations representing 2.4 million students across the US (including 4-year, 2-year, public, private and HBCUs) focused on expanding opportunity for America’s post-secondary students. He currently serves on the Board of the College Advising Corps and previously served on the boards of the Citizens’ Budget Commission, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, and the United Way of New York City. Dua holds an LL.M. from the Yale Law School, and holds dual bachelors in economics and law from the University of Sydney.

At KPMG Sam Sanders is a Partner. He also leads the consulting business’s Higher Education (HE) Advisory team and KPMG’s Education Consulting practice in the UK. Sanders has over 20 years of experience working with high profile public sector clients – both in the UK and Australia – delivering large scale organizational redesign, process and customer journey improvement, core systems selection, and change management projects. Notably, KPMG is a leading UK provider of tax, audit and advisory services. It employs 14,000 people in 22 offices across the country.

The work that Sanders and his team are currently delivering – in partnership with a broad range of UK universities – is helping these important institutions survive and thrive in an ever-changing and increasingly competitive environment. In addition to Education, Sanders has worked extensively across the Criminal Justice sector, Defence, Health and with a number of other Central Government clients.Before joining KPMG, Sanders was a Consultant at Accenture. He received his MA from Kings College London and a BA from University College London.

Dennis Morrone is the National Managing Partner of Grant Thornton's Not-for-Profit & Higher Education Practices. In this capacity, Morrone has overall responsibility for the services performed by the firm for clients in this sector nationwide, along with all related marketplace initiatives. Notably, Grant Thornton is one of America’s largest audit, tax and advisory firms, boasting revenues of $2.3 billion for the fiscal year that ended July 31, 2022. There are almost 50 offices nationwide, employing more than 9,000 problem solvers.

Prior to joining Grant Thornton in May of 2002, Morrone was previously part of Arthur Andersen’s Metro New York Not-For-Profit Practice. On top of that, Morrone recently completed a 3-year term on the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee (NAC). Over his career, he has developed and taught numerous courses on not-for-profit accounting and compliance topics, has been a prolific presenter in various industry forums, and has written extensively for Grant Thornton's not-for-profit industry letters and many other industry publications. Morrone earned his undergraduate degree in accounting from Villanova University.

Louisa Menne Brøndsted is partner in Implement Consulting Group. She has a strong passion for creating behavioral and business impact through learning. She is the program manager of large academies and is experienced in making sure the training sticks. She has designed and facilitated over 1,500 workshops and training sessions and has recently focused on digital and blended learning. The last 8 years Louisa has been the director of Implement Learning Institute and is furthermore the dean of Implement University, which offers internal training with more than 35 masterclasses and 5 learning journeys.

Implement Consulting Group AG is a consultancy firm specializing in sustainable change and transformation. Based in Copenhagen, with additional offices in Aarhus, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo, Oslo, Zurich, Munich, Hamburg, and Raleigh, their team of over 1000 colleagues collaborates with clients worldwide on a diverse range of projects. Previously, Brøndsted was an analytical consultant at STRATEGOS A/S. She earned her master’s in sociology at the University of Copenhagen and another master's in leadership and management at Griffith University.

Martha Laboissiere is a Partner of the Education Practice at McKinsey & Company. In this role, she serves clients in higher education, workforce training and workforce development. Laboissiere works extensively with higher education clients, advising institutions and systems on strategy, growth, technology, research, operational improvement, and organization transformation. Her firm, McKinsey & Co., is a renowned global management consulting firm, serving as a trusted advisor to leading businesses, governments, and institutions worldwide. With a wide-ranging presence across private, public, and social sectors, McKinsey leverages its vast scale, expertise, and global reach to tackle unique and complex challenges for clients.

Laboissiere also leads efforts to transform workforce systems supporting public and private entities with mapping the supply and demand of labor and designing strategies to close the gap. Furthermore, she brings experience in launching new businesses in the workforce training space, including Generation USA — a not-for-profit recruiting, training, and employment program for young adults and displaced workers. Laboissiere graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a PhD in biochemistry and an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Brasilia.

Mark Krafft is a Partner and a leader of the Performance Improvement and Higher Education practices at Bain and Company. While he works across industries, Krafft is also a core member of the firm’s Consumer Products practice. He brings 15 years of consulting and professional services experience to his clients in the US and abroad, having worked in the firm’s New York, London, and Washington,D.C. offices.

Bain & Company is a leading global consultancy that empowers ambitious changemakers to shape the future. Operating in 65 cities across 40 countries, Bain collaborates closely with clients as a unified team. Prior to joining Bain, Krafft worked in M&A investment banking in Los Angeles. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he was granted the R.C. Kopf Fellowship and Shuchman-Hulbert Memorial Award in Marketing. He also earned a BA from Amherst College.

A Partner based in Oliver Wyman’s Singapore office, Claudia Wang leads the Asia education practice. During her career, she has finished around 100 education engagements, advising leading private equity firms, operators, and government bodies globally on policy drafting, opportunity identification and assessment, market entry and expansion, commercial due diligence, and operations strategies in pan-Asia regions. She specializes in K-12 school, after-school tutoring, English language training, and vocational education segments. Apart from the education industry, Wang also has had over 20 project experiences in industrial and consumer sectors.

Oliver Wyman is a prominent global management consulting firm with a strong presence in over 70 cities across 30 countries. They offer specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and organizational transformation. Employing over 6,000 professionals around the world, they help clients optimize their business, enhance operations, manage risks, and seize opportunities for accelerated organizational performance. Before joining Oliver Wyman, Wang was an Associate Partner at EY-Parthenon. She holds a bachelor’s in Business Administration from Shanghai International Studies University.

Rajeev Kalachaveedu is the Managing Partner & Business Leader of Education, Media & Information Services at Cognizant. He has over 26 years of experience in the IT Services industry and remains focused on delivering transformational outcomes to customers. Cognizant education is a digital-first connected learning model that paves the way to the future of higher education.

The consulting firm’s education business is backed by the idea that emerging technologies such as analytics, AI, and machine learning will be key to hyper personalizing the student experience: helping to identify at-risk learners and provide the most effective support for each person. Notably, Kalachaveedu graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University with an undergraduate degree in technology.

At BDO USA, Andrea Espinola Wilson is a Managing Partner of Industry Specialty Services and co-leads the company’s Nonprofit and Education Advisory Services practice. In these roles, she advises organizations on a wide range of issues, including compliance matters, cost allowability and recovery issues, cost accounting, procurement, internal control, and operational assessments. She is an accomplished finance and operations advisor with more than 18 years of experience providing leadership in: compliance, financial, procurement, operations, human resource, budgeting, and management systems.

Wilson’s vast industry knowledge ensures that solutions are grounded in practical, operational experience. She is also a member of BDO’s Institute for Nonprofit Excellence. Before joining BDO, Wilson was a Deputy Chief Management Officer at Management Systems International and a Director of Contracts at the Academy for Educational Development. Earlier in her career, she was an Auditor at KPMG. Wilson earned a Graduate Certificate in Procurement and Contracts Management at the University of Virginia and her undergraduate degree in Business Administration at the University of California, Berkeley.

Patricia McGowan is a CohnReznick Partner and co-Leads the Not-for-Profit and Education Industry practice in New England. She is also a member of the Affordable Housing Industry practice in New England. Through a public accounting career that began in 1989, McGowan works with all types of not-for-profit organizations, including social service organizations, developers of affordable housing, arts and cultural organizations, independent schools, and private and community foundations. Her firm, CohnReznick, is a well-established professional services organization with a rich history spanning a century. With a global workforce of nearly 4,000 team members and a presence in 25 locations, including global subsidiaries, CohnReznick is dedicated to serving clients across 30 diverse industries.

Moreover, McGowan has lectured on various not-for-profit issues. She is responsible for developing CohnReznick’s national not-for-profit continuing education curriculum. In addition, she is a national instructor with CohnReznick’s Leadership and Development team, teaching not-for-profit and affordable housing technical courses and staff development programs. Previously, McGowan was a Partner at Kostin, Ruffkess & Company, LLC. She graduated from the University of Connecticut with an undergraduate degree in accounting.

A Partner at RSM, Dan Bonnette is a firm-designated higher education, government and not-for-profit specialist with more than 31 years of experience. For RSM, he serves as the National Education Sector Leader; and previously served as the Higher Education and Not-for-Profit Industry Leader for the Northeast Region and as the Public Sector Industry Leader for the New England market. Previously, Bonnette managed the audits of numerous higher education, not-for-profit, and public sector organizations, including many with international operations. He’s also provided technical assistance on accounting and financial reporting issues to these organizations.

Moreover, Bonnette is an expert in Single Audits performed in accordance with the Uniform Grant Guidance (previously OMB Circular A-133) and has performed hundreds of audits pursuant to those standards. Prior to joining McGladrey, he spent 18 years at Deloitte & Touche. During this time, in addition to his client service responsibilities, he served as the National Learning Leader for Deloitte’s Public Sector Practices, responsible for developing the training curriculum for all public sector professionals nationally. Bonnette graduated from the College of the Holy Cross with an undergraduate degree in economics.

Samantha Fisher is a Managing Director with Accenture’s Education Practice, with a focus on the US market. She has nearly 20 years of experience in management and strategy consulting, including on projects with 50+ colleges and universities, associations, and education agencies. During her career, Fisher has worked across the spectrum of education in the US and abroad. She has worked with nonprofit to for-profit, private to public systems, small to large, and at all ranges of selectivity.

Her areas of focus include strategic planning, market entry and growth (particularly online), higher education mergers and acquisitions, digital and analytics strategy, and performance management, among others. In addition, Fisher has supported the research and written publications around many of the above topics – and presents regularly at industry conferences. She started her career as a Regional Manager of Asia Operations at EF Educational Tours. Fisher was also Vice President of Education at EY-Parthenon. She earned her undergraduate degree in economics from Brandeis University.

Lane McBride is a member of Boston Consulting Group's Public Sector and People & Organization practices, in addition to serving as a member of the firm’s education leadership team in the US. His firm, BCG, has been a pioneer in business strategy since its establishment in 1963.

Since joining BCG in 2003, McBride has focused primarily on the education sector, spanning topics such as strategy, organization design and transformation, change management, cost efficiency, performance management, and consumer insight. He earned his undergraduate degree in government from the University of Virginia.

Erin Covington is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Public Sector Services in Washington, D.C. As PSS’s Co-Leader and Education Leader, Covington leads a team of 100+ to provide management and advisory services for public sector and commercial clients, with a focus on performance improvement opportunities across the education sector. With a presence on four continents and a team of over 7,500 professionals, Alvarez & Marsal specializes in serving corporates, private equity firms, law firms, and government agencies facing complex challenges.

Prior to joining A&M, Covington served as Chief Financial Officer for numerous organizations, including the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. and Friendship Public Charter schools, where she led the completion of a public bond offering; resolved material weaknesses in federal grants management; and significantly improved working capital management. Covington earned a BBA in accounting from James Madison University.

As the Managing Director of FTI Consulting, Jason Reed brings over 20 years of experience providing consulting services to a diverse range of mid-market and global companies, non-profit organizations, and higher education institutions. Reed’s expertise extends to various industries, including financial institutions, biotechnology, healthcare, and national defense. FTI Consulting is a prominent global consulting firm that offers a comprehensive range of capabilities and expert services to guide clients through their most critical opportunities and challenges. Each practice within the firm is led by accomplished experts known for their deep knowledge and proven track record of delivering impactful solutions.

Prior to joining FTI, Reed served as the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for the University of Maryland Global Campus, the world's largest public online university. During his tenure, he collaborated with Amazon and academic leaders to revolutionize the digital student experience, particularly in the university's acclaimed nursing and cybersecurity programs. Reed also previously ran his private practice as a management and technology consultant. He holds an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from George Washington University.

Frank Kurre is the Managing Director and Global Leader for Protiviti’s Higher Education and Not-for-Profit practice. Notably, Protiviti is a global consulting firm that delivers deep expertise, objective insights, a tailored approach, and unparalleled collaboration to help leaders confidently face the future. Kurre also serves as the company’s Global Account Management lead. An industry veteran, he brings over 36 years of experience providing consulting solutions in audit, technology, business process, controls, analytics, risk, compliance and strategy.

Prior to joining Protiviti, Kurre served for many years as the National Managing Partner of a global accounting firm’s Not-for-Profit Practice. Furthermore, he has provided audit and consulting services to over two hundred not-for-profit organizations over his 36-year career. Kurre graduated from the Seminary of Immaculate Conception with a master’s and from St. John’s University with an undergraduate degree in accounting.

Roy Mathew is a Principal at Deloitte, where he leads the Higher Education Consulting practice. It is worthy to note that Mathew has more than 20 years of consulting and industry experience across both private and public sector clients. Previously he’s led many of Deloitte’s largest Higher Education transformation programs that span strategy, implementation, and operations. Mathew is also actively involved in developing the firm’s capabilities in new business models and innovative uses of technology.

Deloitte is a prominent provider of top-notch audit, consulting, tax, and advisory services, serving numerous renowned brands, including almost 90% of the Fortune 500® and over 7,000 private companies. With a rich history of over 175 years, Deloitte's vast network of member firms extends across more than 150 countries and territories. Mathew holds an undergraduate degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a graduate degree from Stanford University.

Kasia Lundy is a Principal at EY-Parthenon and leads the Education practice. With nearly 20 years of consulting experience with the firm, she is responsible for overseeing teacher effectiveness and compensation initiatives, strategic resource allocation, portfolio strategy work and race-to-the-top strategies at the state level for students in kindergarten to 12th grade. EY-Parthenon, with a dedicated team of 9,000+ professionals spanning across 120 countries, offers EY clients comprehensive corporate, transaction, and turnaround strategies that are not only actionable but also impactful, leading to sustainable long-term growth.

Lundy’s higher education engagements focus on strategic planning, governance and organization structure design, revenue-generating strategies (such as online strategies, program development and alternative revenues), academic outcome improvement strategies, and operational efficiency improvement strategies. She earned a BA in economics and MBA from Harvard University.

19. Chris Schwyter Company: Willis Towers Watson Title: Senior Vice President and Client Advocate for The Higher Education Industry Practice

Chris Schwyter is the Senior Vice President and Client Advocate for The Higher Education Industry Practice at Willis Towers Watson. Schwyter is a leading professional in the commercial insurance brokerage industry, where he is focused on the risk management needs of colleges and universities. His firm, WTW, provides data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk, and capital. With a global presence spanning 140 countries and markets, WTW leverages its local expertise to help clients sharpen their strategy and maximize performance.

Before joining WTW, Schwyter served as a Senior Vice President at Marsh, where he was responsible for middle-market client executives for the higher education industry practice. He is a graduate of Temple University.

Andrew Slapp is the Senior Director of Public Sector and Higher Education at Capgemini, a global leader that partners with companies to transform and manage their businesses through technology. Guided by its purpose of unleashing human energy for an inclusive and sustainable future, Capgemini comprises 360,000 diverse team members across more than 50 countries.

Previously, Slapp spent over four years at DXC Technology, where he most recently served as CEO of Salesforce Prace-DXC Systems Partners. Before that, he also spent more than 11 years at Fuji Xerox Australia. He started his career as a consultant at POS Solutions, where he worked with retail organizations to provide consulting and guidance on installing retail management systems and the best practices. Slapp earned his MBA from Macquarie University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Technology Sydney.

Dayna Aravich is the Vice President of U.S. Education Industry and Chair & Board Operations for Women in Sales at Gartner, where she empowers thousand of women in sales to connect, learn, lead, and drive exceptional business outcomes. Gartner, Inc. is a trusted provider of actionable, objective insights that enable smarter decisions and stronger performance in an organization's critical priorities. With a workforce of over 19,500 associates, Gartner offers expert-led, practitioner-sourced, and data-driven research to guide clients in over 100 countries. In North America alone, the company has 98 associates dedicated to serving its customers in Education; has 250 Education Industry Practitioners and SMEs; and is empowering over 440 unique education organizations through Gartner’s insights platform.

Before taking on her current role, Aravich held several positions within Gartner, including Area Vice President, Americas High Tech, and Manager, Large Enterprise Accounts - Technology & Service Providers. Notably, in January 2021, she took leadership of the Education Industry Practice within Gartner, to better serve this important community of customers – and partner to advance the mission of Education. Aravich earned her undergraduate degree in psychology from Florida Gulf Coast University.

Richard Sadler is a Vice President for Consulting Delivery at CGI. Sadler is responsible for leading the Empowered Learning education team in CGI. He has many years of experience in delivering and managing technology projects across a wide range of key business sectors. Moreover, in recent years, he has been at the forefront of both the Connected Learning program in Glasgow City, and Inspire Learning in Scottish Borders. Currently, Sadler is leading the drive to deliver similar benefits to other partners and projects across the UK and elsewhere. Before joining CGI, Sadler was the Head of Infrastructure Deployment Support.

Notably, CGI is a major global IT and business consulting services company, known for its insights-driven and outcomes-focused approach. With a presence in 400 locations across 21 industries worldwide, CGI offers comprehensive, scalable, and sustainable IT and business consulting services, combining global expertise with local delivery.

At Tata Consultancy Services, Ankur Mathur is a Vice President and also leads the Education Unit. With over 30 years at TCS, Mathur is driven by a purpose of bringing a positive change in the lives of Learners through Digital Transformation of Educational Institutions. He has led strategic relationships and provided technology & transformation services to clients in US, Europe, UK, South America, Israel, India and Australia. During his lenghty tenure with Tata, Mathur has built expertise in business transformation, technology strategy & deployment, and building strategic relationships with Clients & Partners.

Mathur holds a post-graduate diploma in Management and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering. He is also certified in Governance of Enterprise IT and is a Six Sigma Green Belt. He has participated as a Local Ethics Counsellor, and is a proponent of leadership, inclusion & diversity, besides being a Gold Certified Mentor at TCS.

Shawn Rodriguez is the Vice President of State & Local Government and Education at World Wide Technology. He leads a talented team of functional leaders and is responsible for developing and executing go-to-market strategies, including field sales hiring and enablement, integrated field marketing, contract capture, vertical business development, partner and solution execution, and overall growth. Prior to joining WWT, Rodriguez held leadership roles at Forescout Technologies and Splunk. He began his sales career in various positions focused on state & local government and education at NetApp and Nortel Networks.

With over 20 years of experience in the SLED sector, Rodriguez actively serves on numerous boards and committees for organizations like NASCIO, COVITS, and the Commonwealth of Virginia Joint Commission on Technology and Science. He is also a member of the State & Local Government and Education Executive Council for CompTIA. Rodriguez earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the Belk College of Business at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Jean Demchak is the Global Leader of Marsh's Education Industry Practice, overseeing the integration of Marsh McLennan's business operations into the higher education and K-12 sectors, including public, private, and for-profit institutions. In her role, Demchak manages and coordinates the firm's resources, addresses emerging issues in local offices, designs products for not-for-profits, serves as a liaison with the marketplace, and customizes specialized services to meet client needs. As the world's leading insurance broker and risk advisor, Marsh operates in 130 countries with over 45,000 colleagues, providing data-driven risk solutions and advisory services to commercial and individual clients.

With over 34 years of experience in the brokerage community, Demchak has dedicated the last 29 years to specializing in the education industry, focusing on risk retention groups and pooling programs, consortia programs, and innovative product design and customization of coverage documents. Demchak holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and an MBA from the University of Connecticut.

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K-12 Consulting Services

You have big goals for your district. We have the education consulting services to help you accomplish them.

Our Approach to Education Consulting

We approach each district partnership with the mindset that while we can share what has worked elsewhere, we must seek to understand the current culture and context of each district and school. We honor the goals, priorities, and vision of every leader with whom we work, and we help them to hone, articulate, and make those visions a reality.

Our team leads with equity and leverages deep expertise, design thinking, expert facilitation, a spirit of collaboration, and our extensive toolkit of resources and technology to deliver sustainable results.

Instructional Design & Implementation

Organizational Strategy

Leadership Strategy

Surveys & Analytics

K-12 instructional design is an iterative process. To achieve the best student outcomes, districts must rigorously improve their instruction to meet student needs.

Education Elements can help you identify your district’s biggest instructional challenges and create a student-centered approach to solving them. We provide coaching, support, and facilitated experiences to create meaningful change in instructional practice.

We’ll help your team build the necessary skills to implement instructional shifts, continually reassess instructional practice, and update your approach based on changing needs. Our work is grounded in evidence-based practices that have demonstrable impact on student and teacher success.

• Personalized and Blended Learning

This instructional approach empowers students to take ownership of their learning and get the instruction they need, when and how they need it.

We’ll work with your district to develop and articulate a vision and strategy for personalized learning and/or blended learning, and support its implementation through high-quality professional development for teachers and leaders.

• School Transformation

School transformation is the process of building (or rebuilding) school structures around the needs of students and communities. This includes school design, restart, and school improvement.

We can help your district develop the systems and vision for a new school or program, or rethink and redesign an existing one.

School Improvement

Education Elements designs sustainable solutions that improve student outcomes. We recognize that districts with schools designated as in need of improvement must focus on immediate, compliance-driven mandates while simultaneously investing in leadership and learning practices that lead to long-term, sustainable improvements.

Before you can solve a complex problem, you need to understand the root causes — and sometimes, that process is just as challenging as the problem solving itself. That’s where our education strategy consulting comes in.

Education Elements builds winning strategies through community and staff engagement. We identify core challenges, discover new possibilities with human-centered design, and ensure successful implementation through responsive planning. We’ll help your team establish priorities, sort through options, and align on an effective approach.

• Strategic Planning

Whether your district needs to create a new strategic plan or implement and monitor an existing one, we can help. Working closely with your team, we’ll craft a strategic plan that builds unity in your community, fosters alignment, and is a catalyst for transformational change.

• Talent Strategy

Retaining top talent is an enormous challenge in education. The current climate has led to increased burnout and high rates of exit among educators. While the challenge is great, we can help your district support and grow the incredible talent you have — and make your district the destination for new talent.

Leadership is an art, and every artist needs time and discipline to hone their craft. Like any specialist, educational leaders need the opportunity to gain skills and build habits that will help them implement lasting change in their districts.

At Education Elements, we take a systems approach to educational leadership development, leveraging both individual and team learning to inspire innovative leadership and help new leaders emerge.

Organizational Leadership to Support District Operations

We work with states to support district teams, increasing alignment and collaboration.

District teams benefit from support in implementing components of a strategic plan, monitoring progress of initiatives, utilizing funding to strategically support programs, and building practices to bring district and statewide initiatives to life.

Leading Change Through Teams

By building your leadership capacity, you will establish the foundation needed to support teachers and leaders to more fully design, implement, and sustain innovation in their classrooms and work.

Your team will realize a shared vision and learn how to drive equitable outcomes across diverse and complex learning organizations.

Today, many school districts struggle with DRIP syndrome: they are Data Rich and Information Poor. Some may collect data to check a box, others may be inconsistent, or organize the data in silos.

At Education Elements, we help you evaluate your current data culture to help you make more informed and more equitable decisions about how to improve educational experiences and outcomes for all students. We can support you to develop new systems and mindsets around data, elevate student voice and agency through evidence-based data collection, monitor and improve instructional effectiveness, and measure progress towards district strategic plan and school improvement goals.

• Student & Families Surveys

We believe that highlighting student voice can create positive change in districts. Through our student surveys, you can gather students’ perspectives about teaching practices, student engagement and mindsets, peer support, SEL, school climate, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Family and community voice via our Family Surveys provide input from parents and guardians about school climate, diversity, equity, and inclusion, parent satisfaction, barriers to family engagement as well as other key indicators.

Teacher & Staff Surveys

Whether you’re rolling out a new initiative, or trying to gauge how to support your teachers, our teacher surveys capture information about school quality, climate and teacher perceptions of instructional leadership and can gather feedback from beginning teachers about key challenges they are experiencing to support retention.

School Improvement & Redesign: Built On a Foundation of Knowing What Works

A comprehensive list of our services.

Instructional Design and Implementation

• Instructional Capacity Building
• School Redesign
• Hybrid + Virtual School Support
• Curriculum Strategy and Support
• Equity Action Plan
• New Leader Strategy
• Problem of Practice Strategy
• Community Engagement
• Data Culture
• Organizational Leadership and District Operations
• Leading Change through Teams
• Recruiting and Developing Leaders
• Responsive Leadership Series
• Talent Recruitment & Retention
• Equity Leadership Series
• Learning Courses: Building Habits and Mindsets of Effective Instructional Coaches
• Learning Courses: Essential Skills for Leading Learning
• Teachers & Staff Surveys
• System-Level Progress Monitoring Surveys

Our Commitment to Equity

At Education Elements, we partner with districts and schools to design equitable learning environments that meet the needs of every student. We see equity as a choice–a choice that individuals and collective communities make to put students’ individual and unique needs first. Learn more about our approach to embedding equity into our services here.

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Bain has decades of experience helping higher educational institutions of all types address strategic issues such as performance improvement, operating efficiency, cost management and reduction, growth strategy, organizational effectiveness and funding strategy.

U.S. Higher Education Faces a Moment of Truth

Covid-19 may be the last straw for many long-struggling schools. Survival will require extreme steps in the near term, and plenty of innovation over the longer term.

The Transformational Power of Career-Connected Learning in Healthcare

Beating the Odds: Improving Student Outcomes in Higher Education

Accelerating the Transition to Sustainable Food Production

Four Steps for MENA Companies to L-E-A-D on Sustainability

Universities are reacting with determination and creativity to the new challenges they face. Budget deficits have mushroomed following sudden declines in endowment values, deep cuts in education funding and limits on tuition increases.

Competition in the global job market is making new programs, new training and new models of instruction essential in order for students to obtain gainful employment after graduation. And amidst a fluctuating student population, universities are harnessing new technologies, such as e-learning, as a way to reach even more students.

These pressures place core academic missions of teaching, research and outreach at risk. To help bring the focus back to schools' core missions , Bain is helping institutions get back on the path to success:

• We are working to redesign the university model to make higher education a reality for more students across the US.
• We closely examine school operations and organizations to determine which administrative support functions, and redundancies, are diverting scarce resources away from higher education's core purpose.
• We are finding ways to rationalize traditionally decentralized and highly complex organization structures with widely disparate service levels and unworkable spans of control.

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Consulting services, accelerated performance transformation, customer experience, diversity, equity & inclusion, mergers & acquisitions, people & organization, sales & marketing, sustainability & responsibility, technology & digital, transformation, ready to talk.

We work with ambitious leaders who want to define the future, not hide from it. Together, we achieve extraordinary outcomes.

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Since the turn of the 21st century, according to Credit Suisse’s global wealth report , the world’s middle-class segment has seen the biggest growth, with population size nearly trebling during the 2000-2019 period. Meanwhile, the rate of internet penetration shot up from 16.8% in 2005 to 53.6% in 2019 , according to the Telecommunication Development Sector (a special agency of the United Nations). Ready for one more statistic? According to a UNESCO-sponsored report, the global population of college students has more than doubled since 2000.

Increasingly affluent, connected and academically ambitious: That’s the modern world in a nutshell.

All this might seem like an ideal environment for growth in the education sector. The reality, however, is significantly more complicated. Public and private organizations alike face challenges in selecting the right geographical markets for expansion, creating the right educational offerings for each locality and making the appropriate digital investments for education delivery. The upshot is that in education, a robust strategy is more critical than ever.

L.E.K. Consulting’s Global Education Practice (GEP) serves public, private nonprofit and private for-profit educational institutions. We also work with investors and foundations that are involved with the education industry. As one of the world’s foremost education consulting firms, we have led on-the-ground engagements in numerous countries and industry subsegments.

From Botswana to New Zealand, from China to the United Arab Emirates, from Poland to Paraguay, our 100-plus specialists travel around the globe to provide education-sector consulting services to investors, operators and philanthropists across various markets. We’ve led multiple on-site engagements in all education segments: early childhood, K-12 and higher education. We also offer specialties in English-language training, transnational education (TNE) and education technology (edtech).

We combine primary research with advanced analytics and strategy consulting to help clients realize growth opportunities in new sectors and geographies, including untapped developing countries. Our knowledge bank contains the lessons from over 700 engagements in 90 countries — lessons that we bring to bear in helping you formulate strategies of your own.

Guide To Investing in KSA's Private K-12 Market

Discover success strategies in Saudi Arabia's locally driven education market with Danish Faruqui , Partner in L.E.K.'s Global Education Practice. Explore insights on tailoring product configurations, understanding demographic shifts and exceling in a competitive landscape.

Investing in Saudi Arabia's Private K-12 Market

Last year, private K-12 schools accounted for a significant 16% of K-12 enrollment in Saudi Arabia, outpacing public institutions. In this excerpt from his December 2023 keynote session at EdEx Saudi, L.E.K. Partner Danish Faruqui delves into the driving trends, potential investment opportunities and transformative shifts shaping the kingdom’s education sector.

Gateway to Growth: KSA's Private K-12 Market

In this video, Danish Faruqui and Chinmay Jhaveri of L.E.K.’s global education practice delve into Riyadh's private K-12 sector. Driven by Saudi Arabia's ambitious giga projects, burgeoning hosting initiatives and unwavering commitment to global prominence, the kingdom has embarked on an extraordinary journey — one in which we're poised to play an instrumental role.

Key Themes to Watch Out For in 2024

Join Ashwin Assomull , Head of the Global Education Practice, as he takes you through the latest global and Dubai-centric education trends. Gain insights spanning M&A deal activity to developments in the K-12, Higher Education, and EdTech sectors. Whether you're an investor seeking strategic opportunities or an education operator navigating the landscape, Ashwin's keynote address from last year's EdEx MENA conference promises invaluable perspectives.

How we help

Clients engage us to:

• Identify and characterize opportunities. With sustainable growth and profitability as strategic imperatives, we provide an aggregated overview of both regional and global education markets, local market demand, and the competitive landscape. This helps reveal commercial opportunities and relationships, which is an essential step in establishing and strengthening regional and global presence.  
• Assess potential investments. There’s a rapidly growing appetite for investment in the education sector, which has proved to be one of the most resilient industries. At the same time, more education companies are using acquisitions as a way to scale. We work closely with our private equity and corporate clients throughout the transaction cycle. Our support ranges from identifying attractive companies to performing commercial due diligence, as well as increasing portfolio company value growth and providing exit support.  
• Define winning strategies. We help clients transform insights into actionable, tactical initiatives that are in line with their goals and objectives. We accomplish this by conducting deep-dive market assessments, using powerful analytics and combining an understanding of local markets with an awareness of global trends in the education industry.  
• Evaluate key areas for potential growth. We assess opportunities for clients aiming to increase their offerings via expansion into adjacent education subsectors such as edtech. With our understanding of the education industry size and its magnitude, we also help clients create business plans for new opportunities, taking into account specific objectives and priorities.  
• Create value from the ecosystem. We tap into our partnerships across the education network — in innovation, talent, capital and impact. Our deep global network puts us in a unique position to support our clients in strategy development, private equity investments, mergers and acquisitions, and other areas.

Success stories

We have helped clients achieve growth and strong returns on investments via growth strategies, site feasibility assessment, transactional advisory services and more. Here are a few of our success stories:

• Dual curriculum market strategy for a school operator. A prestigious British school engaged us to evaluate and identify high-potential cities across China for a possible dual curriculum endeavor. We provided a detailed market assessment and competitive landscape for each city. Then we prioritized the most attractive cities to enter and created a differentiated proposition for each market.  
• Digital strategy for a business school. We used a three-step approach to help a renowned European business school build its digital strategy. First, we assessed the school’s existing digital initiatives. Next, we conducted in-depth primary and secondary research on digital best practices specific to student recruitment, student engagement and community building. Finally, we prioritized the most effective digital initiatives for our client’s efforts to improve student outreach and sales conversion.  
• International student acquisition for a university system. The higher education institutions of a European country sought our help in finding ways to recruit more students from East Africa. Working closely with the country’s embassy in Africa, we examined the market landscape and student outflow mobility from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia. Next, we evaluated the country’s competitive positioning as a study-abroad destination. We followed up by identifying key opportunities and partnerships, and then put together a detailed go-to-market strategy.

• Education Technology
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Investment Insights Adult Learning and Upskilling Sector in the USA

Education investment in apac: the road ahead, k-12 platforms: the good as gold story continues, british brands: where to expand next (part 2), trends in international student mobility, education: africa deal round up and themes for 2024, how do we help clients achieve high-impact results.

Ashwin Assomull

Global education practice.

Jitin Sethi

Anip Sharma

Chinmay Jhaveri

Middle east.

Sudeep Laad

Danish Kamal Faruqui

Aakansha Sethi

Ashwin Goel

Learn about how we can help you with your education needs., subscribe to our quarterly newsletter, related industries and capabilities.

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A National Education Consulting Provider

Selected case studies.

SCHOOLWORKS® is a national education consulting provider and certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) with the mission of advancing all aspects of student learning and well-being by building the capacity of educators and educational institutions to assess, plan for, and achieve student success.

We work with schools, districts, networks, state departments of education, charter school authorizers, and various education agencies to support sustainable school improvement through five key service areas: Accountability and Authorizer Supports, Quality Reviews, Instructional Supports, Leadership Supports and School Developer Supports.

Our Continuum of Services

Our continuum of services allows us to meet each client’s needs. explore how you can partner with schoolworks through one or more of our service areas..

• Authorizer Support and Technical Assistance
• Authorizer Evaluations
• Meet Our Accountability Experts
• Accountability System Supports

• Equity Audits
• Meet Our Quality Review Experts
• Virtual School Quality Reviews
• Specialized Reviews
• School, District, and Network Reviews
• Personalized Learning Reviews

• Meet Our Instructional Experts
• The SchoolWorks MORE System
• Learning Walks
• Teacher Professional Development

• Recruiting Services
• Comprehensive School Improvement Services
• Meet Our Leadership Experts
• Plan Development and Monitoring Support
• Leadership Coaching

• Charter School Renewal Supports
• Accreditation and Reaffirmation Support
• Charter Application Bootcamp Online Course
• Meet Our School Developer Experts
• Charter Application Development Consulting

Our Educational Consulting Services

Every educator and education professional starts out with the same goal: to help students reach their full potential.  However, this is a complex undertaking impacted by a vast range of factors.  Even educators and administrators committed to providing the best possible guidance must contend with challenges related to their school, district, budgeting, and the socioeconomic conditions in their area, along with dozens of other relevant influences.

Addressing the challenges inherent to education can seem overwhelming, but SCHOOLWORKS® is here to offer educational consulting services that help you create better schools for the children in your community.  Maybe your school is underperforming and you want to generate improvements to academic growth on state and other assessments, student attendance, graduation rates, college persistence rates, and more.  Perhaps you’re interested in measurable improvements to teacher practice that increase student engagement, retention, and overall learning.  It could be that you’re tasked with getting approval to open new schools for the benefit of the student population.

At SCHOOLWORKS®, our primary goal is to help educators, organizers, developers, and other education professionals to find the best ways to advance all aspects of student achievement and well-being.  We proudly partner with schools, school districts, charter networks, educational support organizations, and even state departments of education to build capacities that lead to measurable improvements.

Our goals are the same as yours – to create the high-quality schools that students and communities deserve.  Together, we can develop actionable strategies and achieve targeted results that advance the interests of schools and students.

In our capacity as educational consultants, we strive to help educators and educational institutions in five key ways, by providing:

School Developer Supports

For school developers, the application process can be tedious and prohibitive, even though it is necessary.  At SCHOOLWORKS®, we have skilled and experienced project managers to oversee the application development process, whether we’re reviewing and providing feedback, completing existing drafts, or authoring applications tailored to your vision.  We even have a self-paced school developer course you can take. The application process can be tricky, and our experts are on hand to help ensure success.

Quality Reviews

Comprehensive reform requires an objective understanding of strengths and areas for improvement, which we’re pleased to provide at the school, district, and network levels.  Our on-site reviews and specialized reviews of academic programs, curricula, instruction, and related services are conducted using research-based protocols to ensure a fair and accurate analysis of school and district programs and operations, which can be used for improvements or for the purposes of accountability.

Accountability Services

Accountability can be a major factor in improving and maintaining school performance, and SCHOOLWORKS® provides consultation services that help organizations to develop frameworks for evaluation, complete those evaluations, and, if desired, use the data collected to make recommendations for improvements.  These services help school districts, state education departments, and charter school authorizers to create clear expectations, develop oversight, and maintain accountability.

Instructional Supports

Educators need proper support in order to provide the best learning experience to students.  Our MORE program helps educators to Master, Observe, Rate, and Elevate the quality of instruction with in-person training, feedback, classroom visits, and follow-up support.

Leadership supports

With leadership coaching, improvement planning support, and third-party monitoring, we help school and district leaders to define objectives, create plans of action, and measure results.  Our learning and support services help leaders in education become the change they want to see.

In addition to our regular consulting services, we’ve recently added Remote Learning Plan Development and related support services to help schools and districts struggling to pivot during the COVID-19 crisis.  We’re happy to help you assess the quality and efficacy of remote learning plans in order to improve and develop best practices for successful outcomes.

Benefits of Public and Charter School Consulting Services

At SCHOOLWORKS®, we are passionate about improving education for students, educators, and communities because we have worked in education ourselves.  All of our managing directors and consultants are former teachers, authorizers, school leaders, or other professionals that have worked in roles similar to yours.

We understand the challenges facing school developers and educators today, and our goal, like yours, is to provide students with the best educational opportunities.  Our services rely on evidence-based practices that provide targeted data and insights, leading to the development of actionable strategies.  Our public and charter school consulting services are designed to improve the quality of schools at every level.

Educators, schools, school districts, charter networks, educational support organizations, and state departments of education can all find the support and solutions they seek with the help of the dedicated and experienced professionals at SCHOOLWORKS®.  With school developer supports, quality reviews, accountability services, instructional supports, and leadership supports, educational institutions have the opportunity to improve student engagement and achievement.

Strategic School Development Services

At SCHOOLWORKS®, we understand the complex challenges schools and districts face today, which is why we proudly offer comprehensive public and charter school consulting services.  Improving educational institutions requires support for develops, leaders, and educators.  It requires quality reviews and accountability.  While some consultants meet some of these needs, the former education professionals that make up our consulting staff provide a full range of specialized services that truly address the difficulties inherent to modern education and help to create the best possible learning environment for students.

Experience You Can Trust

As former teachers, authorizers, school leaders, and more, the experienced professionals at SCHOOLWORKS® have been in your shoes, which means we have a unique understanding of the challenges you face.  This gives us an edge when it comes to providing effective educational development consulting services and collaborating on actionable strategies for improvement.

Friendly, Knowledgeable Professionals

When it comes to promoting student engagement in learning to drive achievement and success, the last thing you need is consultants coming in and telling you you’re doing everything wrong.  What you need is passionate individuals that understand the challenges educators, leaders, and developers face today, and that have the skill and experience to help you achieve strategic and measurable improvements.

Our friendly and knowledgeable staff not only has a background in education, but we’ve been offering educational consulting services for over two decades.  We know how to pinpoint problem areas and empower teachers, leaders, and developers to improve quality and elevate student achievement.

Your Partner in Educational Transformation

Although schools across the nation face many of the same challenges, every school and district is unique, which is why SCHOOLWORKS® offers consulting on public and charter school development that reaches every level of educational operations, from educators, to leaders, to developers, to state departments of education.  As former educators and leaders ourselves, we’re passionate about transforming the education system to create the best possible opportunities for future generations.

Through instructional, leadership, and developmental support and collaboration, along with quality reviews and accountability services, we provide an all-inclusive approach to developing strategies designed to improve schools and districts at every level.  This only helps to ensure the best possible educational opportunities for students, and the greatest support for communities.

Introducing SchoolWorks Charter Application Bootcamp!

Thinking of launching a charter school? Not sure where to begin? Check out our new online course, brought to you by the trusted experts at SchoolWorks.

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Education strategy consulting

What the EY-Parthenon education strategy consulting team can do for you

The EY-Parthenon education consulting strategists are helping clients negotiate a sea change occurring across the education sector: new technologies and the global pandemic are influencing how and where students are taught; globalization is driving the need for new and different skill sets; shifting demographics are compelling new collaboration initiatives. A sustainable world is the new imperative making quality education for all a major priority.

EY-Parthenon strategy consulting professionals, with broad experience and deep knowledge across the sector, are helping education leaders overcome these new challenges with bespoke, all-encompassing growth strategy plans and implementation support. EY-Parthenon strategy consulting professionals find solutions to specific issues using our toolkit of primary and secondary research, stakeholder engagement, and quantitative analysis.

We have dedicated consultants in all the following five segments of the education sector:    

Government and foundations growth strategy

Covid-19 pandemic quickly revealed the huge inequities in our educational system and pointed to specific societal needs that now can no longer be ignored. Many federal and state organizations and foundations based in the educational sector are now evolving short and long-term strategies to reform our educational system. Known as a leading strategy organization in this space, EY-Parthenon helps institutions develop an overall growth strategy with 1) detailed execution plans to combat these issues; and 2) hands-on support to facilitate success.

Pre-K-12 systems and schools

EY-Parthenon teams offer Pre-K-12 institutions superior end-to-end consulting services from market needs assessment and strategic planning to student or school performance analytics, financial advisory, operational improvement, and organizational redesign. Our clients include education delivery providers including early childhood and PK-12 systems, school networks, and ministries of education as well as leading foundations, non-profits, intermediaries, and membership associations involved in K-12 education. Recently, our work has helped states and districts align talent and budget against key strategic initiatives related to learning acceleration, teacher supports, and system-level change. We also support specific needs related to grants management, cybersecurity, technology systems and networking, building portfolios, compensation schedules, and public health programs (e.g., vaccine initiatives).

Higher education institutions

EY-Parthenon teams help higher education institutions transform and thrive in ways that are both practical and sustainable. Some of the many services we provide include identifying opportunities for differentiation, optimizing the education delivery and service model, developing efficient and sustainable organizational structures and managing transformative processes through partnerships or collaborations. The EY-Parthenon goal is to bring analysis and insight to higher education leaders to empower them to achieve the full potential of their institution.

Content service providers and technology

EY-Parthenon teams help organizations carefully determine their unique growth path. Consulting teams provide knowledge and support throughout a process that might include organic or inorganic growth such as acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures, or even divestments. Whatever the growth path, we offer practical, hands-on help during the transition process to help ease the transformation.

Global investors

EY-Parthenon clients include venture capital, private equity, and corporations. The education teams identify new education investment opportunities to help produce both short and long-term value in current investments. From the pre-contract stage through the eventual integration (or separation due to divestiture), EY-Parthenon education strategy consulting teams both help guide decision-making and provide execution assistance throughout.

In short, EY-Parthenon’s leading experience can help bring both short and long-term value to your organization. EY-Parthenon teams are dedicated to helping turn today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders.

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Corbett Education Consulting LLC

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Strategy • Implementation • Transformation

A boutique consulting firm specializing in school, district, and state education agency transformation. Our mission is to provide education agencies, organizations and foundations with the tools and support they need to drastically improve public education for all children.

Guiding Principles

All children deserve access to a high-quality education that will prepare them for higher education, work, and life.

Transformational change is hard work. Such changes often require stakeholders to vary their ideologies and practices, and to challenge the status quo.

Every aspect of the education system should be determined and designed for the best interest of children.

Our Team & Work

Corbett Education Consulting LLC works with a handful of consultants to meet the needs of clients. We also regularly partner with other consulting and research organizations to collaborate on projects.

Corbett Education Consulting LLC is a certified woman-owned business in Illinois (BEP). The company was founded in Illinois and is registered as a foreign-entity in Connecticut and Delaware.

Julie Corbett

Julie Corbett, President and Founder of Corbett Education Consulting LLC, specializes in school, district, and state education agency transformation with clients throughout the country. She works with school management organizations, districts, state education agencies, and other non-profit organizations on a variety of improvement-related projects. She was the project lead for the National Comprehensive Center's Systemic Technical Assistance Team (STAT). She's also acted as a Peer Reviewer for USED's Race to the Top District competition, was a member of USED's Race to the Top Reform Support Network, was the advisor for the School and District Improvement state collaborative (SDI SCASS) with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and was a strategic partner and a member of the leadership team for the Center on School Turnaround.

Before launching her own education consulting company in 2010, Corbett worked at Mass Insight Education & Research Institute, The Rodel Foundation of Delaware, and she completed a year of service with Americorps VISTA and the Delaware Mentoring Council program. Corbett served as a member of the Norwalk Public Schools Board of Education (2017-19), leads civic engagement work in her town, and serves on the Board of Directors of Norwalk ACTS.

Corbett was a Senior Fellow in the Institute for Educational Leadership’s Global Education Policy Fellowship Program (IEL-GEPFP) in 2013-14 and was a Fellow in Northeastern University’s 2008 EPFP cohort. Corbett is currently enrolled in the Ed.D program in education policy and leadership at American University. She has an M.P.A from the University of Delaware and a B.A. from Denison University. Corbett and her husband live in Fairfield County, Connecticut, with their two young sons.

• Strategic and organizational planning for states, districts, external vendors, and other improvement support organizations
• Change management supports
• Technical assistance for states and districts implementing school and district improvement models
• Case study research and creation
• RFP creation and proposal evaluation
• Publication creation & dissemination strategies
• Grant writing and review
• Peer review facilitation and participation
• Policy analysis
• Brief/memo writing
• Workshop facilitation & presentations

See examples of our work:

- Publications

- Presentations

See the Corbett Education Consulting LLC blog for more information and news about the school and district turnaround, transformation and improvement world.

• Academy for Urban School Leadership
• Academic Development Institute (ADI)
• Center on Innovation & Improvement (at ADI)
• Center on School Turnaround (at WestEd)
• City Year Chicago Collaborative for Student Success - Promise to Practice
• Consortium for Educational Change
• Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
• Darden Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education (at University of Virginia)
• Delaware Department of Education
• Illinois Center for School Improvement (at AIR)
• Illinois State Board of Education
• KIPP Foundation Louisiana Department of Education
• Louisiana Department of Education
• Middletown Public Schools
• Mississippi Department of Education
• National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
• National Comprehensive Center (at Westat)
• National High School Center (at AIR)
• Norwalk Public Schools
• Regional Comprehensive Centers
• Southern Education Foundation (SEF)
• U.S. Department of Education, Office of School Turnaround
• U.S. Department of Education, Reform Support Network
• Virginia Department of Education

“Working with Corbett Education Consulting LLC on our district’s strategic plan has been ed reform at it’s best. Before, we had a scatterplot of ideas. Now our work is aligned to a theory of action, is well-articulated, has a corresponding strategic budget, and we are monitoring for continuous improvement. It was a fun, albeit rigorous process, and my team and I grew throughout the engagement.”.

Michael Connor, Superintendent, Middletown Public Schools (CT)

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The Consultant’s Toolkit: Consulting Training

Refine your consulting abilities through proven techniques to improve organizational effectiveness.

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Organizations look to consultants to provide necessary guidance on important business decisions. Designed for internal consultants with less than seven years of experience, The Consultant’s Toolkit program explores a variety of consulting tools to teach you how to diagnose organizational problems and evaluate potential solutions, enhancing your ability to confidently present recommendations to your clients and drive successful outcomes.

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Through a combination of lecture, case discussions, and interactive group exercises, this program focuses on teaching analytic techniques that can be applied in diverse settings, ranging from small and large companies to for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Who Should Take the Consultant’s Toolkit Training?

This program is designed to offer significant benefits to internal consultants and individuals who are currently collaborating with consultants or seeking to integrate consulting tools and techniques into their organizations.

Participants with less than seven years of consulting experience can expect to discover additional tools to enhance their expanding toolkit. However, those with over seven years of experience may find the content too foundational.

Program participants hold positions such as:

• Financial consultant
• Project manager
• Human Resources manager
• Business Analyst
• Solutions consultant
• Political strategist

Individuals working within small or medium-sized consulting firms, as well as internal and independent consultants, will find this program most beneficial. This program is not recommended for consultants from the largest consulting firms.

Benefits of the Consultant’s Toolkit Training

The Consultant’s Toolkit program offers the opportunity to develop a strong knowledge base and skills required to complete successful consulting projects.

Participants will learn:

• The baseline for success in a consulting role and an understanding of the consulting process
• Various consulting techniques in areas of strategic formulation, market research, operations, performance management, and project management
• Effective methods for achieving impactful implementation
• Essential consulting skills for collecting, analyzing, and presenting data
• How to engage more effectively with independent consultants working for your organization

Upon completion of the program, you will receive a Certificate of Completion from the Harvard Division of Continuing Education recognizing your achievement.

In The Consultant’s Toolkit, you will learn through a combination of lecture, case studies, and interactive group exercises. Topics covered include:

• An overview of the consulting industry, trends, and the role of consultants
• Problem definition
• Discovery and data collection
• Recommendation and presentation
• Implementation
• Dealing with resistance

Considering this program?

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• Defining the Problem
• Structuring and Solving the Problem
• Essential Consulting Frameworks
• Persuading the Decisionmakers
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With participants from more than 100 different countries and a variety of industries, Harvard Professional & Executive Development programs provide you the opportunity to gain fresh perspectives and unique insights as you learn alongside peers with similar roles who face like business challenges.

How do I know if the Consultant’s Toolkit program is right for me?

This program is designed for internal consultants and those who work with consultants. If you are looking at training courses to improve the consulting process within your organization, this program is right for you.

The Consultant’s Toolkit will provide internal consultants with the valuable consulting skills they need to succeed. However, if you have more than seven years of experience or work in one of the larger consulting firms, you may find this program to be too fundamental.

How will the Consultant’s Toolkit program help me improve my career or company?

Participating in The Consultant’s Toolkit program demonstrates your proficiency in consulting tools and techniques, making you a valuable asset to your current or future organization. With this program, you can upskill or reskill to show initiative and develop new strengths, which you can demonstrate in your next consulting project.

Harvard Division of Continuing Education

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

Higher Education Leaders, this one is for you.

You represent an educational institution that is trying to transform and break through silos that have existed for years, while creating a remarkable learning environment and experience so students graduate in a manner that manifests your institution’s mission. Consider TSI as your external catalyst and partner to bring these changes to life.

Transform Your Institution

Transforming Solutions’ expert higher education consulting team understands the changing marketplace of higher education and the continuous need to think innovatively about how to serve diverse campus communities.

For over 25 years, TSI has helped hundreds of organizations create an improved “operating environment” to serve their clients/members and other constituents more efficiently and with a greater degree of personalization and quality. Ultimately, through our work, we strive to create capabilities that result in a better “experience” for the customer, member, student, employee, and/or vendor.

Lead Your Team to Success

Develop a World-Class Constituent Experience

Whether we are assessing the student, faculty, staff, alumni, or community experience, our higher education consultants will evaluate the processes and organizational structure to enable transformation.

Save Time and Resources

TSI will evaluate cost-saving measures in the areas of technology and finance for your unit or institution, uncover hidden expenses to improve your future budget, and then select and implement the best financial and technical solutions to help your institution achieve its strategic plan.

Prepare for Your Future

Our higher education consultants will assess the current state of your unit’s processes to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement for an ideal future state. We will discover inefficiencies and ways to improve processes going forward.

Our higher education consultants are experienced, resourceful, and pragmatic in their approaches and strive to assess the critical areas where our clients have opportunities for improvement, make fact-based recommendations, and help our clients to make desired changes come to life.

Our Solutions Specific to Higher Education

Advancement services.

Process Improvement

Enrollment and Student Experience Services

Finance and administration, sponsored research administration and programming, career services consulting, information technology assessment, we’re with you every step of the way. here are just a few of our top consultants..

Gerald Doyle

Susan Rossetti

Our Clients’ Results

TSI worked with us to complete a strategic technology assessment, which included the difficult task of coordinating and articulating our vision and strategy for new technology. The project was a great success: they ensured that everyone participated in the process, that all voices were heard, and that deliverables were on-time and distributed to all participants for thoughtful feedback. On a day-to-day basis, TSI was enthusiastic and dedicated to our work, always demonstrating that our success is their success. They have acted as key advisors to me and as coaches for the entire project team. We so enjoyed working with the TSI team and hope to continue to do so in the future.

Transforming Solutions, Inc. proved to be very adept in creating strategic and practical approaches to our complex improvement project. They gathered data efficiently and effectively, creating buy-in amongst our faculty and staff as they did so. Dan and Alan did this by spending a considerable amount of time on our campuses working directly with groups of our staff and faculty. Ultimately, TSI presented us with a detailed process map of our communications, identified key areas for productive improvement, and worked with us to tailor their final recommendations to our specific needs. The team of TSI does the job and does it well.

TSI staffs their project teams with high quality, knowledgeable, skilled, and dedicated individuals, assuring you that your initiative will be a success!

TSI joined the UF team at an important inflection point. We were in the very early stages of asking ourselves what ‘next’ looked like for our fundraising program and what technology ecosystem would be required to actualize it. Dan and his team led us through an extensive planning and preparation process that set us up for success in the implementation of our new CRM and the associated platforms. In the planning and preparation phase, we worked with Dan to develop visioning statements, create a roadmap, and secure funding.

I really enjoyed working with TSI, particularly, I loved the way you ran the brainstorming sessions early on, which can sometimes be extremely disorganized if not done right. I respect and admire your ability and instinct to facilitate discussions and to tease out useful information. I believe your success is a result of natural ability, and lots of hard work and preparation. I’d love to stay connected and to serve as a resource if I can be of value to the things you do.

Questions You May be Asking:

Our higher education consultants partner with institutions, units, and project teams to facilitate transformative change. New challenges are constantly coming to the forefront of higher education, and it’s a higher education consultant’s role to positively disrupt your work and inspire innovative and strategic thinking.

We understand that budgets are tight. We will work with you to create a customized budget that meets your financial circumstances.

Yes! We understand that circumstances don’t always allow us to conduct our work on-site and in person. TSI’s methodologies are flexible for remote facilitation.

Reniscience Education

Reniscience Education is a boutique education consulting firm and think tank born out of a desire to promote learning that is   empowering, joyful and relevant to the 21st century learner.

We combine our breadth of experience and in-depth expertise of the education sector to transform how children learn.

Our Services

Professional development.

We design and facilitate tailored professional learning and development programs for in-service and pre-service teachers, as well as school leaders through workshops, coaching, open classrooms, lesson studies and other innovative mechanisms. 

School Transformation and Evolution Program (STEP)

We work through long term partnerships with schools to improve school processes, set up efficient systems, revise curricula, transform teaching and learning practices in the classroom, integrate technology and develop a distributed leadership model.

Impact Assessment

We design and conduct third-party impact assessments for existing education programs.

Curriculum & Content Development

We develop lessons, unit plans, curricular maps and other teaching and learning content requested by schools or educational organizations.

Program Design & Management

We offer end-to-end solutions for education programs, including setting long and short-term goals, training and support, monitoring and evaluation, team management, tracking progress and evaluating impact.

Student Workshops

We conduct a host of STEM-related student programs for 3rd – 11th standard students

Advisory Services

We help you achieve your mission by bringing more than 20 years of combined educational experience and expertise through our advisory services.

“ In the early days of our organization, we engaged Reniscience Education to codify our existing school leadership training curriculum. They had a very thorough approach to their work and did a great job in organizing our content as well as presenting it in a visually appealing way. The guide has been essential in helping us gain credibility in Malaysia – a few key stakeholders were really impressed with the curriculum manual in terms of content and presentation 

They were very professional throughout the process and a pleasure to work with!”

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Education First is dedicated to improving education for all students, especially those furthest from opportunity.

We are a mission-driven strategy and policy organization dedicated to helping our clients navigate through complexity to create more people-focused, equitable and inclusive initiatives, strategies and organizations.

Today’s schools are challenged

We live in a fast-moving world driven by knowledge, innovation and creativity. Our nation’s schools are adapting to these changes — but much remains to be done. We need a culture change in public education to transform the way we teach, lead and learn.

Education First can help

We are a mission-driven strategy and policy organization with deep expertise in education improvement. We help navigate through complexity to create more people-focused, equitable and inclusive initiatives, strategies and organizations.

Partnering with education stakeholders

We direct our time and talent to support clients that can achieve the greatest impact on education systems, teachers and students. Discover what we can do for your organization.

We are inspired by the belief that a high-quality education is the best way to improve the odds for every young person and we are passionate about supporting all children, especially those farthest from opportunity.

Gain insights from our experience

Transforming the teaching profession.

Meet some of our experts

Education First is a seasoned team of trusted advisors to the leaders responsible for delivering what many Americans want most: public education that effectively prepares all students for success in college, careers and a world of constant change.

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The Moscow Consulting Group has a successful track record of working across different industries on strategic and operational problems

Clients value Moscow Consulting Group services for the high standards of quality, tailored approach, and cost-effectiveness. Our clients are large & medium companies, investment funds, government organizations, and start-ups.

Historically, top-tier consultants like McKinsey, BCG and Bain could only serve a limited number of clients. But the economic field requires strategic thinking from all economy players, regardless of their size or financial situation.

We take on all types of challenges faced by our clients, ranging from designing and implementing large scale strategic developments and operational transformations to creating and reinforcing business plans and investor presentations.

We tailor each and every project to specific situations and business needs of our clients, assure top-tier management consulting project management, and bring in industry expertise and local knowledge.

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MCG serves clients in many industries. As economy and businesses change rapidly due to technology, consumers preferences or competition MCG helps its clients to adapt and thrive through the changes.

MCG provides consulting services and support clients in all functional areas from strategic and business development to implementation processes

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