Jennifer Timm

Jen began working with ESG in 2020 to lead its strategic planning process and now stewards the organization’s strategy and innovation work. As part of her role, Jen is in charge of designing and launching innovation systems at ESG, including leading pilots and exploration of growth areas and service offerings. She is also responsible for ongoing strategy implementation, with a focus on building enhanced business and impact analytics to guide decision-making and designing internal processes to strengthen business development processes.

Prior to ESG, Jen served as Head of Consulting for Agora Partnerships, where she led an accelerator program for social businesses across the Americas. As part of that role, she designed and led intensive bootcamps for CEOs from social businesses across different sectors to help them develop their strategic growth plans, define their impact strategies, and prepare to raise impact investment, and led a team of consultants to provide personalized consulting to entrepreneurs as part of the accelerator program. She also built out Agora’s office in Colombia and led the partnership strategy across the country.

 Before that, Jen was a part of the New Designs to Advance Learning team at Carnegie Corporation of New York, where she conducted grantmaking to best-in-class organizations leading work to reimagine schools and school systems to provide more student-centered and future-oriented learning experiences. Jen began her career teaching English as a Fulbright scholar in Argentina and as a Teach for America Corps member in New York City.

Jen earned her B.A. in Latin American Studies from Wesleyan University and holds a M.S. in Education – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Fordham University and a M.A. in Quantitative Methods for the Social Sciences from Columbia University. She is active in the entrepreneurship and impact investing space across the Americas where she regularly serves as a mentor to social start-ups. She also co-founded and remains on the leadership committee of Mujeres de Impacto, a network designed to foster personal growth and reflection in women working in impact in Colombia.

Why are you in this work?

Education can be transformational – for individuals and the broader society in which we live. There are millions of talented educators and entrepreneurs doing incredible work across the country, yet systemic barriers still remain that keep the life-changing potential of a high-quality education out of reach for many individuals. Innovation and human-centered design with an explicit focus on equity are powerful tools to create systems that make access to excellent education a reality in every community across the country.

Why ESG?

ESG wants to change the system itself so that all learners have access to educational opportunities that help them transition into and navigate a rapidly changing workforce. I’m excited to work with a team committed to redesigning and aligning K-12, postsecondary, and the work of work to ensure all learners can prosper.