Leadership Team

Folio Collaborative was founded by a team of educators committed to the mission of developing the best possible system for enhancing faculty and staff growth and learning in schools. Our leadership team is ready to work with you to implement a comprehensive plan designed to meet your unique needs.

Jess Wilson
Interim Executive Director

Jess

Jess is working to translate our strategic vision into a reality by providing support to the team across all areas of work. She started her career as a high school social studies teacher in a district outside of Philadelphia where she taught Economics, World History, and American Government. She went on to get her Master of Public Policy from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Upon completing her Master’s Degree, she moved to Maryland to work for the Maryland State Department of Budget and Management as a budget analyst. Her work in the capital budgeting office led her to take an interest in the facilities campaign to rebuild or replace all the school facilities in Baltimore. She joined the Maryland ACLU education team as an advocate and worked tirelessly to win over $1 billion in funding with the passage of the 21st Century buildings legislation to support rebuilding or replacing over 25 schools with the greatest facility needs in Baltimore.

After passing the legislation to fund the efforts, she joined the Baltimore City Schools team working on executing the construction campaign. After the completion of the first two schools of the program, she transitioned to work as the Director of Strategy and Compliance for the Academics office, leading budget development, assessment strategy, and union negotiations for the Academics team.

As Maryland reviewed the state education funding formula with the establishment of the Kirwan commission, she was responsible for reviewing and modeling the recommendations from the commission to identify the impacts of different scenarios for the students of Baltimore. She finished her time at City Schools working in the Finance Office as the Executive Director of Strategic Resourcing and Financial Management where she led the procurement team and the budget process for the entire district throughout the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Contact Jess: jwilson@foliocollaborative.org

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Melissa Fast
Head of School Success

Melissa

Melissa is the Senior School Success Program Manager at Folio Collaborative. She will lead the Folio team that provides all of your implementation and school success support. She has more than 20 years of experience in education. During that two-decade career, she has served as an adjunct college instructor, classroom teacher of mathematics, state coordinator of mathematics, and worked in higher education administration.
She entered into the edtech space at DreamBox Learning as a Senior Customer Success Manager where she combined her passion for learning and school success to support districts. Prior to this role she was the Mathematics Consultant at the Kansas State Department of Education for nearly a decade.

She has led professional learning opportunities for educators on a variety of topics such as: administrator and peer observations, creating a growth mindset school culture, and establishing SMART goals to drive educator and student success. In addition to her work with educators, she has provided professional learning to parents, local school boards, business and industry representatives, and legislators.

Melissa has a Bachelor of Science from Bethel College, 7-12 Professional Teaching License of Mathematics for Washburn University, and a Masters of Science from the University of Kansas.
Contact Melissa: mfast@foliocollaborative.org

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Amanda Nielsen
School Success Manager

Amanda

Amanda is the School Success Manager at Folio Collaborative. She is a member of the Folio team that provides all of your implementation and school success support. Prior to joining Folio, she served for four years as an English teacher in Chicago and Omaha. At these schools, she helped lead various PLCs, department and grade level groups, MTSS-B councils.

After leaving the classroom in 2022, she entered the EdTech space at GoGuardian and Pear Deck Tutor, working as a Customer Operations Specialist. There she supported schools at both the K-12 and Higher Education levels implement on-demand tutoring interventions.

Amanda has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Secondary Education from North Park University, and is a licensed educator in Illinois and Nebraska.

Contact Amanda: Anielsen@foliocollaborative.org

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Liz Kornheiser
Vice President of Strategy

Liz

Liz is Folio’s Vice President of Strategy and leads Folio’s E.E. Ford Foundation work and manages the day-to-day operations at the Collaborative. As the daughter of a boarding school headmaster, she is no stranger to education. Liz is an Emmy Award-winning producer of ESPN’s highest rated daily sports show, Pardon the Interruption. She left the world of television production in 2012 to pursue her passion for education and public sector work.

Prior to joining Folio, Liz served as the Partner and Director of Consulting Services at Greenwich Leadership Partners. There, she consulted and coached school leaders and executives around strategic planning and organizational design, facilitation, and professional development. She also designed and delivered GLP’s Strategic Planning Institute, an innovative program helping schools to create and implement strategic plans for driving institutional growth and developing high functioning leadership teams.

She initially joined Folio in 2018 as the project manager for the E.E. Ford Leadership Grant. In that role, she supported the design team of administrators and teachers from Folio member schools as they researched best practices around collaboration, prototyped updates for the myFolio platform, and developed the release of new features.

Liz graduated Phi Beta Kappa and received her BA in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University, and an MEd from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Contact Liz: liz@foliocollaborative.org

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Alaena Silva
Sales and Marketing Manager

Alaena

Before joining Folio as Business Development Representative in 2023, Alaena was a sales consultant for West Music. There, she partnered with schools throughout the US to ensure each had the right materials to best support their teachers and students.

Alaena is a veteran teacher with 18 years experience in the music classroom. During her time in education, she mentored and coached teachers of all levels of experience and presented professional development workshops at the state and local level. She continues to serve on the executive board of her chapter of a national nonprofit dedicated to providing high-quality professional development for music educators.

Alaena earned her Master of Music and Orff Schulwerk certification at West Chester University and Bachelor of Science in Music Education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Contact Alaena: asilva@foliocollaborative.org

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