Brigid Ahern

President and Chief Executive Officer

Turnaround for Children’s board of directors voted unanimously to name Brigid Ahern President and CEO in 2018, citing her goal orientation, operational focus, successful track record and unwavering dedication to the organization’s mission. Brigid leads Turnaround’s efforts to apply tools and strategies, grounded in science, to equip educators across the country to help all students reach their full potential. From 2014-2018, as Chief External Affairs Officer, Brigid oversaw the communications, development, executive, policy and systemic impact departments, and served on the organization’s leadership team, driving the strategy that positions Turnaround to meet growing demand for its work translating science into educational practice at scale.

Before joining Turnaround, Brigid led development for Uncommon Schools, where she launched six capital campaigns in five regions and secured resources to scale the charter network from 11 to 38 schools. Earlier, she served the New York City Department of Education as Senior Manager of Operations for the Partnership Support Office (PSO), where helped design the PSO service model, assessed external partners for instructional and managerial capacity, built partner autonomy, and drove high-quality support to 187 schools that chose to align with partnership organizations. Prior to the DOE, Brigid was a Director of Content Delivery at the Corporate Executive Board, where she designed and presented best-practice research to corporate development officers at Fortune 500 companies.

Brigid holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia. She is an alumna of The Broad Residency in Urban Education and a Billions Institute Fellow.

Who is your hero?

The person I admire the most in this world is my best friend, Meredith. She never compromises herself, she never pretends, she is always Meredith. She embraces who she is every moment of every day. Think of how amazing the world would be if everyone did this!

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My answer has changed since having twins five years ago. They left all the other achievements behind.