As former state superintendent of education for the District of Columbia, Hosanna Mahaley Jones directed statewide public education policy for early childhood education, K-12, and higher education. She implemented accountability systems and managed federal funding to support educators, overseeing transportation to school for District children with special needs, engaging stakeholders and preparing students for success both within and beyond the classroom. Jones has over 20 years of executive leadership experience in leading efforts to promote student achievement. The former Chief of Staff at Chicago Public Schools under then-CEO and current U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Executive Officer of New Schools, Jones was responsible for coordinating day-to-day operations for over 600 schools and established the Renaissance Initiative, a comprehensive plan to overhaul low-performing schools with new 100 community-based education models that consistently outperformed traditional schools on multiple academic measures. She also served as Education Advisor to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley,where she created and led numerous city-wide programs. Her professional career began as an award-winning middle-school mathematics teacher, later ascending to President of the Atlanta Education Fund, serving as executive point of contact among corporate partners and elected officials and raising million within six months for school improvement and student programming. Following that, she was the Executive Director of Social Justice at Wireless Generation. She is the Past Vice-Chair of NACSA and member of the Executive Committee of Education Sector. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in History from Marquette University, Master’s degree in Middle School Education from California State University, a Master’s degree in Education Leadership from the University of Illinois-Chicago and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She is also one of the inaugural members of the Harvard Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) and has served as a facilitator for the program for the past 5 years.