Who we are

Monitoring, Evaluation & Systems Manager

Amira aims to support organizations in articulating their story of impact through a deeper understanding of their own performance, potential growth and past learnings. She works with each organization to articulate their theory of change and improve their own awareness of areas of strength and growth to facilitate organizational measurement and learning. Amira 18 years of experience range from working with corporate social investment funds to NGOs in the education, health, governance and social development sector.

Senior Program Associate – ALforEducation

Elsie manages our talent pipeline development by executing high impact career opportunities for our students and alumni through actively cultivating partnerships with education-focused institutions across Africa. She is passionate about defining investments for the youth and believes that education and entrepreneurship are fundamental pillars of economic empowerment. Elsie was born and raised in Kenya and is grateful for the opportunity to interact with different cultures and contexts through her work.

Chief Finance Officer - ALforEducation

Francis desires to see education transformed in Africa through edupreneurs who are mindful of the importance of efficiently allocating financial resources to achieve scale, impact and sustainability. Having studied Finance and is currently in his last stage of CFA and ACCA, he has had the opportunity of working in the asset management, broking and education space giving him a well-rounded appreciation of money management and deep passion in seeing learners grow and change communities.

Director – ALforEducation

Melanie is the Director of the African Leadership Academy's ALforEducation Program. She is also part of the One World Network of Schools team where she leads initiatives across the African continent, focusing primarily on new school starts, personalized learning, and college & career pathways. She has managed projects in Tajikistan and supports partners in India. She has worked on public reform primary school literacy in South Africa, as the Program Director of Funda Wande, and is the founder of Streetlight Schools – a community-based school which innovates on local learning. She is an advisory board member of Kinyeti Academy, and a board member of Elimu Soku and Streetlight Schools. Melanie has a master’s in human Rights and Democratization in Africa.

Chris Bradford is co-Founder and Chairman of African Leadership Academy in South Africa. He is also the President of the Morehead-Cain Foundation, which operates the oldest merit scholarship program in the USA. At African Leadership Academy, Chris spent seventeen years building a unique institution that sought to address what he and his co-founders saw as the most important factor in Africa’s future development: the supply of ethical and entrepreneurial leaders across the continent. In recent years, he has worked to shape the ALforEducation network and unlock the power of education entrepreneurs across Africa through Accelerator programs designed in partnership with FFE. Chris is an Echoing Green Fellow and Siebel Scholar. He holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University.

Kelsey is the Executive Director and Education Program Director for the Robertson Foundation. She has also served as the Director of Evaluation and Strategy for the NYC Foundation for Computer Science Education—which coordinated a public-private partnership to bring computer science education to NYC public schools—and as a research and administrative assistant to Sir John Hood. She holds degrees from Columbia University, as well as an MSc and a DPhil from the University of Oxford.

Matthew Tierney is the co-founder of the Future Fund for Education (FFE). He has been involved in emerging markets for over twenty years in both advisory and investment roles, including as a co-founder and partner of Development Capital. Matt was co-founder and general partner of Aperture Venture Partners, an early stage investor in healthcare. He also worked in the Global Corporate Finance group at Credit Suisse First Boston and was a founding TechnoServe Fellow, assisting early stage companies in Latin America and Africa. Matt serves on the Board of Trustees of the Trinity School and TechnoServe’s Global Advisory Council. He is on the Advisory Board of the African Leadership Finance Committee, was a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations and sat on the Board of The BCS Group, a Kenyan based ICT company. Matt received his B.A. from Georgetown University and his M.B.A from Columbia Business School.

Trish Tierney the co-founder of the Future Fund for Education (FFE). Trish is also a co-founder and CEO of Women’s Alliance for Knowledge Exchange (WAKE), a social impact organization that amplifies the work of women’s rights and social justice leaders worldwide. Prior to founding WAKE, Trish was Executive Director of the Institute of International Education (IIE) in San Francisco. Trish also worked in the private sector, at Cisco Systems, helping to bring the Cisco Networking Academy Program to the world’s fifty least developed countries. Trish spent spent several years at the World Bank, focusing on education reform and girls’ education in Africa. She began her career as a WorldTeach volunteer in Namibia. Trish is on the Board of Trustees of the San Francisco Day School, and holds a B.A. from Notre Dame and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.