Janine enjoys supporting organizations at pivotal moments of change and growth, using people-centered design to establish new systems and practices with an equity lens. With nearly two decades of experience in the education sector, she has scaled founding teams; designed leadership development programs; and led selection processes for nonprofits, charter schools and school districts. Beginning her career at New Leaders in Washington, DC, Janine learned the importance of competency-based hiring when selecting aspiring principals. At Rocketship Public School’s home office, Janine effectively built relationships with stakeholders across teams and schools to implement organization-wide school leadership and teacher development initiatives. Janine then served as Education Pioneers’ Western Region Associate Director, leading partnership development and talent placement across California and Colorado. She also facilitated leadership development programs at Education Pioneers, honing her ability to bridge connections between Fellows from diverse lived experiences. Then, Janine joined the edtech start-up Swing Education, a YCombinator (Imagine K-12) revenue-generating startup tackling the substitute teacher shortage. In three years’ time, her team grew Swing's substitute teacher pool to over 5,000 subs across six states serving 1,500 schools. She then transitioned to the role of VP of People Operations, building scalable HR systems and processes and developing a culture committed to diversity & inclusion as the company headquarters grew to 75 employees.
Janine attributes much of her success to a genuine curiosity about what matters to people and a deep empathy that compels her to advocate for systems and structures that put people first.

Janine is a Catalyst:ED Network Provider, Pahara Fellow, and 2011 Education Pioneers Alumna. She earned a B.A. in Urban Studies from Stanford University and a M.Ed in Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.