Nikki Bridges is founder and chief executive officer of Lit. She is also the co-founder and co-president of Relay Lab Schools, a non-profit school management organization that partners with public school districts to transform low performing schools. As co-president, Nikki leads the design and implementation of the academic program as well as manages the internal professional development programs for teachers and leaders. Prior to this role, she was an assistant superintendent at Uncommon Schools. Under her leadership, her portfolio of elementary schools outperformed the state average by 32% on the 2016 New York State ELA exams and 44% on the New York State Math exams. Before leading as an assistant superintendent, Nikki was the founding principal at Leadership Prep Ocean Hill Elementary Academy. During her tenure as principal, Leadership Prep Ocean Hill ranked for three consecutive years in the top 10 charter schools across New York State for both ELA and Math. In 2017, Leadership Prep Ocean Hill received the National Blue Ribbon Award, an award that celebrates schools for their overall academic excellence and their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups. During her time at Uncommon Schools, Nikki was a founding member of the team that developed the literacy instructional approaches featured in the book "Great Habits, Great Readers" and was honored to co-lead the most recent iteration of the team that codified the Grade 3 - 5 literacy approaches that are used across the entire Uncommon Schools elementary network. Nikki started her career in education as a Teach For America Greater New Orleans corps member and taught elementary school and college-level courses in a variety of educational settings. Nikki’s work in urban education has been featured in leadership development books written by led by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and trainings led at the Relay Graduate Schools' National Principal and Supervisors Academy. She uses her experiences to train educators across the country and internationally in school- and district-level leadership. Nikki received her bachelor's degree in English and minored in theology from Georgetown University, Masters of Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education and Masters of Arts in Literary Studies (PhD in Literary Studies Candidate) from University of Wisconsin-Madison.