Adam has witnessed firsthand primary and secondary education in Europe and higher education in the United States. This enlightening journey has led to an appreciation regarding the importance of reliable, accurate, and unlimited communication between students, families, and teachers. He is an avid devotee to sharing the positive message of change that comes with accessible technology for students of all populations.

He brings to TalkingPoints over 7 years of progressive consultative sales experience as a top-performer working in the K-12 educational content market serving school districts nationwide. Adam holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Science & Global Studies from Benedictine University and is elated to be presented with the opportunity to connect students, teachers, and parents through the TalkingPoints platform.

Amy brings over 15 years of experience to her role as Senior Director of Philanthropy. She has dedicated her career to supporting education and workforce-development focused organizations and has seen first hand the life-trajectory changing power that education can have for young people.

As a fundraising professional, Amy has led annual development efforts, major growth and capital campaigns, and developed multi-tiered corporate partnerships that have raised over $100 million. Amy holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from San Francisco State University and currently serves on the Membership Committee for the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Orange County Chapter.

Andrew spent the first 14 years of his career having a direct impact on student learning as a classroom teacher, coach, and building administrator. In 2015, he made the decision to take his knowledge of the education space to the private sector.

Andrew brings with him a wealth of knowledge related to the decision-making structure and process within a school district. Most importantly, he is passionate about making a positive impact for students and families. Andrew holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Kansas State University, and Masters Degrees in Education and Educational Leadership.

Ángel has extensive experience in back-end development and data stream and batch processing using Ruby, Python, and SQL. He started his career in full-stack web development and has knowledge in DevOps and DataOps focused on Infrastructure as Code. Ángel holds a Computer Engineering degree from The National Autonomous University of Mexico.

As a parent in the public school system, Anke has experienced first hand the challenges teachers and parents of all backgrounds have to overcome to ensure an equitable education for all kids.

Anke brings almost 20 years of experience as a product designer to her role at TalkingPoints. One of her greatest joys and motivators has been creating products and services that make an actual difference in people’s lives. Anke has always been surrounded by educators and is most excited when helping companies and nonprofits in the education sector. Anke originally studied photography in Berlin before moving to California. In San Francisco she honed her design skills at SFSU Multimedia Studies Program long before UX design was even a profession.

Antonio is passionate about evidence-based work that can be used to help others. As TalkingPoints’ Technical Implementation Specialist, Antonio develops new solutions and software for TalkingPoints’ partners.

Antonio has a degree in Electrical Engineering with a focus on telecommunications from the Republic University in Uruguay.

Aram is a full stack developer with over 10 years of experience developing software. He has extensive experience on Web infrastructure and Networking and has architected the TalkingPoints web and mobile app. Aram has a master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Catholic University in Uruguay.

As a former teacher, Ariadna witnessed the struggles families in the US faced when their home world language was not English. After she moved on to become a District Translator in one of the nation’s most diverse school districts, she advocated for parents and students, created resources and provided professional development to teachers and administrators on translation technologies to bridge the communication gap.

Ariadna has 18 years of experience as a professional translator, editor and proofreader with over 15 translated books that have been published. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Universidad del Valle de México, and speaks 4 languages.

Brett has spent his career partnering with school districts across the country beginning with supporting curricular programs and most recently working with districts to help support equity and diversity via their literacy programs.

Brett holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Biological Sciences from Northern Illinois University. Brett is passionate about helping reduce barriers for families to be actively involved in their student’s education and looks forward to positively impacting student outcomes through his work at TalkingPoints.

Chris is passionate about bringing people together across language barriers. As a parent who changed school districts during the Covid pandemic, he has seen firsthand the importance of establishing communication between schools and families, and the trust that follows when this level of communication is maintained.

Chris has an M.A. in Translation (Spanish > English) from Kent State University. A linguist by training, he began his career in localization operations before moving on to implementing machine translation solutions and ultimately transitioning into product management. In his role on the Product team at TalkingPoints, he brings together this unique skill set to focus on quality and breadth of translation, ensuring successful communication and better outcomes for students and their families.

As a first-generation college go-er, Claudine personally experienced how invaluable education can be. As a parent and community member, Claudine believes that parents, regardless of their own backgrounds, can be tremendous champions in their children’s educational success.

Claudine has worked in technology her entire career, primarily focused on consumer digital media, in business development, product and general management roles. More recently, Claudine has turned to building technology for social good, supporting nonprofit education organizations. Claudine studied information technology at University of Virginia and has an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Business.

Crystal brings six years of experience collaborating with teachers and providing academic support that helped make classrooms more inclusive and seven years providing language instruction for ELL students while building and nurturing relationships with their families. She has witnessed firsthand the value of regular, effective parent-teacher communication and how together, they can positively contribute to a student’s academic success.

At TalkingPoints, Crystal finds great purpose in supporting an organization dedicated to bridging the communication gap and advocating strong family engagement in schools. She is a graduate of Purdue University with a BA in Public Relations and a Minor in Marketing.

David is inspired by the positive impact that nonprofit organizations bring to our world. He has been working as an accounting professional in nonprofit organizations since the start of his career.

David graduated from the University of Houston and holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting. As a former ESL student, he understands the importance of eliminating language barriers to strengthen student academic success. He believes TalkingPoints will bring positive change to the lives of many students, families, and educators.

Dimetri is passionate about improving outcomes for all students – regardless of what languages they speak at home or the zip code in which they live. During his time as a secondary teacher and in the ed tech space, he has seen what is possible when families are engaged and advocating for their scholars. He enjoys bringing families and schools closer together through his work with TalkingPoints.

Dimetri graduated from Rutgers University with a double major in Political Science and Spanish Linguistics and later earned his master’s degree from the University of North Carolina Charlotte in Foreign Language Education. He is a Fulbright scholar and had the opportunity to teach English at a Brazilian university before teaching high school Spanish in Charlotte, NC and Camden, NJ.

Emily is passionate about education’s ability to open doors, open minds, and spark curiosity. She is excited by the endless possibilities that exist at the intersection of technology and social impact. At TalkingPoints, she manages finance and administration functions to help the team and its impact grow and thrive.

Emily has led financial strategy and operations across an array of organizations, industries, and teams. She is fulfilled by using her organizational management, business development, and financial operations background to make a difference in the world, particularly in the lives of children and youth. She studied Psychology at Virginia Tech, where she also received her MBA.

Emma is driven by student success — and knows that starts when schools and families work as a team. As a former English teacher in rural and urban multilingual communities, she grounded her instruction in the power of language and voice. Emma sees her role at TalkingPoints as a natural extension of her classroom experience to ensure all families and teachers have access to the tools to communicate effectively.

In addition to her time in the classroom, Emma is a graduate of the University of Richmond and worked as an instructional coach and learning experience designer for teachers. She is thrilled to be a Partner Success Manager at TalkingPoints to increase family engagement in service of students.

Gabriel is our lead iOS developer and designer with extensive experience in both areas. He studied Computer Science at Republic University in Uruguay and is passionate about building products that address social problems.

Guillermo is passionate about using technology to improve education and helping parents stay engaged in their children’s education. After years working for financial institutions, he felt the need to move to a more fulfilling path and joined TalkingPoints so that he could use his skills to support teachers, families and students.

As our lead AI software engineer, Guillermo works on improving our machine translations and natural language processing capabilities. He is a first generation college graduate and has a degree in Computer Science at Republic University in Uruguay with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.

Heather is inspired by how education can empower students to reach their potential and help build productive healthy communities. As a public school parent in a diverse district, she’s seen how fostering positive connections between schools and families can make a big difference in student learning and the important role that access and inclusion play in building these relationships.

She has spent most of her career in digital marketing, including nearly a decade working in the nonprofit education sector to advance the adoption of effective school practices and help parents understand and use education data. Heather is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College, where she studied history and French.

Heejae Lim is the Founder and CEO of TalkingPoints. Previously, Heejae worked on education reform for public schools in the Middle East. She also served as chief of staff to a special advisor to the Secretary of Education in the UK. As a consultant at McKinsey, she advised the Gates Foundation and Teach First UK. Heejae is graduate of Oxford, LSE and has an MBA from Stanford Business School where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and has been recognized as an Echoing Green Fellow, Stanford Social Innovation Fellow, Ashoka Changemaker and Forbes 30 under 30 to change education.

At a young age, Ivan’s mother, a middle school ESL teacher, instilled in him the value of education. Since then, he has viewed academics as a means for social advancement, and worked to include others in that vision. During college, he served as director of Young Men’s Circle, Pomona College’s only youth mentorship program, and founded an annual scholarship for the mentees. At TalkingPoints, he supports educators on a national scale.

Ivan earned a bachelor of arts in international relations and Middle Eastern studies from Pomona College before serving as a Fulbright English teacher in Rabat, Morocco. He is an Arabic speaker and is fascinated by intercultural communication.

With over 12 years of experience in marketing, Jamie loves everything about education and truly believes in the power of family engagement to promote student success. She began her career as an elementary teacher and technology coach in a public school in Tennessee before moving into EdTech marketing aimed at making classroom experiences more impactful and engaging.
At TalkingPoints, Jamie oversees B2B marketing and supports the partnership team in elevating TalkingPoints offerings among education leaders and decision-makers to have a greater impact on improving student outcomes through effective family engagement. Jamie received her bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from Middle Tennessee State University and completed coursework in Economics from Tennessee State University.

Juan Pablo is passionate about using data and technology to help families and students. He brings more than 15 years of experience working with databases like Microsoft SQL Server and Snowflake and is proficient with business intelligence tools such as Power BI and Tableau.

Juan Pablo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Systems Analysis from ORT University Uruguay.

Kevin is passionate about giving a voice to families who speak English as a second language. As a child of two immigrants, Kevin grew up acting as an interpreter for his parents and teachers.

As a Customer Success Associate, Kevin brings over six years of experience and is dedicated to helping teachers and families connect with one another. Kevin is finishing his bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University where he is majoring in liberal studies and minoring in marketing.

Kevin aims to improve student success in education through discovering new and innovative practices. Kevin is a quantitative education researcher who uses various methodologies to identify best practices through analyzing large amounts of data.

Kevin received a Ph.D. and M.A. in Education from UCLA and a B.A. from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining TalkingPoints, Kevin was a research scientist at the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research. Kevin has published over 20 studies in a variety of peer-reviewed education journals.

Lauren is dedicated to driving impact and social change by working at the intersection of technology and social service – she is excited to bring that focus to TalkingPoints. For over 20 years, Lauren held product development leadership positions in both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. She led the expansion of a resource information and referral platform that supports under-represented communities and led the development of online products in higher education STEM disciplines that are in use by millions of students around the world.

An experienced mentor and coach, Lauren co-founded a cross-functional mentor group and donates her time to different organizations. Earlier in her career, Lauren lived in Asia and those experiences of living in dramatically different cultures continue to influence her work and perspective. Lauren graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania with a degree in English Literature and Women’s Studies.

As an academic researcher, Lucia has learned to be proactive and apply her analytical skills when facing challenges. Her work experience has also taught her to be inquisitive and adapt to different situations. She has seen how education impacts and opens doors and is excited to share this experience with others.

Lucia has a BA in biochemistry and is finishing her PhD in chemistry at the Universidad de la República. She has also studied Web Development and Big Data.

Ramiro enjoys facing challenges and developing technological solutions that bring social impact. He believes education is the best way to provide equal opportunities and finds pleasure in developing software for educational purposes. Ramiro has a degree in computer analysis from the University of the Republic Uruguay. He is continuing his education in Robotics and Artificial intelligence. He also has experience as a Math teacher and semi-senior web developer.

Santiago is an IT professional with over a decade of experience in DevOps, release management, and development work. He has also helped many organizations adopt DevOps and agile practices. Growing up in a family of educators, Santiago understands the importance of education and advocates for bridging the gap in education and technology. Santiago has a Systems Analysis degree from ORT Argentina University.

Selina is passionate about removing barriers through yielding the power of communication to people. As someone who has worked closely with students from multicultural backgrounds and an avid language learner herself, she understands the importance of understanding one another to bring about engagement and understanding.

She is a graduate from the College of Mount Saint Vincent with a B.A. in English Literature and Minor in Spanish, where she has gone on to pursue opportunities in both classroom and online instruction for ELL’s and children from various social and economic backgrounds. As a Customer Success Associate, Selina gets to use her teaching experience, bilingualism, and zeal for building relationships to empower teachers, students, and families using TalkingPoints in the classroom and beyond.

Stephanie is all-in to help move the needle for social change. Closing the equity gap in education can have an immediate and drastic social impact in the US. Stephanie believes that the intersection of education and technology will make this possible. She is excited about the opportunities that TalkingPoints provides for students and families who face equity gaps every day.
Having come from a family of educators, Stephanie has spent the majority of her career in EdTech. Her experience in both sales and product management shaped Stephanie into a user-obsessed advocate for students and educators, and she will use that passion to impact and improve TalkingPoints. Stephanie graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in English Literature and Cinema Studies.