Team Biographies

Sehba Ali is responsible for the academics and school culture of the seven KIPP schools in the region as well as for developing and managing region’s school leaders.  She is the founder and former principal of KIPP Heartwood Academy in San Jose, CA.  KIPP Heartwood Academy is a college-preparatory middle school that opened in July 2004, becoming the first public charter school in Alum Rock (East San Jose, CA). The school currently educates 370 students in grades five through eight and is committed to ensuring that every single student is prepared for success in college and in life.  Mrs. Ali is also the co-founder of KIPP San Jose Collegiate, a charter high school in East San Jose helping students get to and through college.  KIPP San Jose Collegiate currently educates 165 ninth and tenth grade students and plans to grow one grade level each year until reaching capacity at 400 students in grades nine through twelve. At both schools, approximately 90% of students will be the first in their families to graduate from college.

Emily Rummo manages Finance, Human Resources, Facilities, Operations & Technology, and KIPP Through College and is a member of the regional leadership team. Emily oversees the $21M budget for the organization, and leads all centralized, back-office support services to ensure our schools run smoothly and our students and teachers have the resources they need to succeed. Emily joined KIPP as COO in July of 2008.Emily’s background prior to KIPP is in strategy consulting and venture philanthropy – specifically supporting education entrepreneurs working to improve public education.  Emily holds a MBA and Masters in Education from Stanford University and a Bachelors in English from Dartmouth College. Her first introduction to KIPP was teaching creative writing through KIPP DC KEY Academy’s Saturday School program in 2002.

Before joining KIPP Bay Area Schools, Jen was the Director of Development at Team-Up for Youth in Oakland. Before that, she lived and worked in New York City, where she was the founder and former director of Urban Word NYC. She received her doctorate in 2008 from the Urban Education Doctoral program at the City University of New York. Her graduate research was on the topic of high school surveillance policies affecting urban youth of color. She is the co-author of Brave New Voices: Guide to Teaching Spoken Word Poetry (Heinemann, 2001) and Theory and Educational Research: Toward Critical Social Explanation (Routledge, 2008). Jen lives in Berkeley with her 3 year old son Will.

Prabhu manages the financial and human resources operations for our schools and regional office.
Prior to joining KIPP Bay Area Schools, Prabhu worked as the Director of Finance and Operations at KIPP Adelante Preparatory Academy, a high-performing KIPP middle school in San Diego, CA. At KIPP Adelante, Prabhu was responsible for directing and implementing multi-year budgeting, accounting and financial reporting, purchasing, risk management, human resources, facilities planning, maintenance and operations, food services, transportation, technology, enrollment, student data, and authorizer relations. In three years, Prabhu strengthened the organization’s balance sheet, built substantial cash reserves, managed four unqualified audits, and led a successful effort to gain independence from the local district for special education services.Prabhu began his career at Pantheon Ventures, an investment management firm in San Francisco, CA. Prabhu spent four years at Pantheon, where he was an integral member of the Investment Team, investing $1.5 billion in 20 private equity funds per year. While at Pantheon, Prabhu served a three-year term as a member of the Board of Directors of the YWCA Berkeley. Prabhu holds a B.S. in Business Administration from U.C. Berkeley.

David is the KIPP Through College (KTC) Director for KIPP Bay Area Schools. KTC ensures that KIPP middle school and high school alumni are supported to and through college. Since the summer of 2009 he has led and overseen the maturation and growth of the Bay Area’s KTC program. He leads a team of 10 individuals focused on providing KIPPsters with high school placement services, high school / college advising, college support / alumni advising, and career readiness.Prior to becoming KTC Director, David served as the school leader at KIPP Bridge Charter School in Oakland, California for six years. Before joining KIPP, David taught seventh and eighth grade social studies in Baltimore, Maryland as a Teach For America corps member. A Bay Area native, he is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and Johns Hopkins University, with a Masters in Teaching. He was a 2002 KIPP School Leadership Program Fellow before becoming principal of KIPP Bridge Charter School. David lives in the East Bay with his wife and two sons.

Lakisha manages operations for all KIPP Bay Area schools in the areas of compliance, public funding, data management, and knowledge management. In this role, she is responsible for building a scalable and efficient operational infrastructure, providing exceptional service and support to our schools, and ensuring their continued operational success.Before joining KIPP Bay Area, Lakisha was the Director of Finance & Operations for KIPP Bridge College Prep and a founding team member of the school. During Lakisha’s four years at KIPP Bridge, she was responsible for creating and implementing the school’s operations and managing their fiscal relationship with their local school district. She also served as the high school placement counselor for KIPP Bridge’s first graduating class, and in her final year at the school, led KIPP Bridge to their most successful fundraising year since the school’s inception.Prior to joining the KIPP, Lakisha was a recruitment consultant for The New Teacher Project’s New York City Teaching Fellows Program. She was responsible for broadening the program’s applicant pool to include more African-American and Science professionals.. Lakisha was also a Teach for America corps member and taught high school ESL in Compton, CA. Lakisha holds a B.A. in English from Cal State Hayward and an M.A. in Educational Technology from Pepperdine University.

Tracy Hanna serves as the Director of Growth for KIPP Bay Area Schools. In this role, she is responsible for improving facilities at our current high schools and opening two new schools in San Francisco and San Jose in 2013. Prior to joining KIPP Bay Area Schools, Hanna was the Project Manager of and then Executive Director for a new YMCA facility dedicated to developing the educational, leadership, and career skills of teens in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this role, she oversaw the design and construction of the facility, planned and implemented new social services programs, and assisted in fundraising for the project and the operational budget. Previously, Hanna served as an educational consultant for low-performing public high schools across the country through the Career Academy Support Network (CASN). While with CASN, Hanna co-authored a report for the California Department of Education on the performance of 290 state-funded Partnership Academies in public high schools, which was later used to justify additional funding in the state budget for more academies. Before transitioning into the educational and nonprofit sectors, Hanna worked in several human resources roles for two large corporations; but her passion lays in helping low-income youth access the resources they need to lead a successful, long life. Hanna holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in social welfare from the University of California, Berkeley.

April Chou is responsible for the region’s expansion of new KIPP schools within the local communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. She also oversees marketing, development, and innovation for the region, to align the organization toward dramatically increasing its impact with even more students. April first worked with KIPP Bay Area Schools in 2007, to help facilitate the creation of the regional organization.Prior to joining the team, April was a Partner at NewSchools Venture Fund, where she was responsible for investment strategy and management and also led the organization’s development efforts to raise philanthropic capital for early-stage, entrepreneurial organizations in public education. She also created and cultivated communities of practice among NewSchools’ portfolio organizations to strengthen their collective knowledge, learning and impact. April began her career as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in Washington, DC, Beijing, and San Francisco, where she advised clients on strategy, organization, and operations.April is currently the board chair of Students for Education Reform (SFER), a national nonprofit whose mission is to empower college students around the country, engage them in education policy, and mobilize them to close the achievement gap. April received her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and has an MBA and Masters in Education from Stanford University. She lives in San Francisco with her husband Peter and their two sons.

As the Director of Special Education, Julie Mattoon is responsible for the integration of special education services across the seven KIPP Bay Area Schools to better support the educational growth of students with disabilities. Prior to her position at KIPP, Julie oversaw the special education program at FAME Public Charter School for the three campuses and the independent study program. In 2010, she successfully transitioned the FAME special education program from a school of the Alameda County Office of Education to independent LEA status operating under the umbrella of the El Dorado County Charter SELPA. She was also on the founding team of Bay Area School for Independent Study, a school dedicated to alternative education opportunities for students in grades K-12.Julie has a Master’s in Public Health from UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Washington. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and two teenage children.