Senior Management
![]() | Bill Jackson, Founder, President, and CEO
As a teacher in the U.S. and China in the late 1980s, Bill came to recognize
the extraordinary influence that parents have over their children's
education. Then, as an Internet entrepreneur in the 1990s, he recognized
the extraordinary potential of the Internet as a communications medium to
engage and support parents. He founded GreatSchools in 1998 to tap the
power of this new medium to help parents be more effectively involved in
their children's education. An avid school volunteer, Bill is a member of
the California P-16 Council and serves as secretary of the Parent
Association Council at Chinese American International School and a
volunteer at Miraloma Elementary School. He has also served as a director
of the San Francisco Education Fund and as treasurer for two San Francisco
school financing measures and a school board campaign. Bill holds a degree
in mechanical engineering from Yale University and is a graduate of the
San Francisco Coro Fellows Program. As the former president of the
Scientific Society at
Phillips Exeter Academy,
Bill loves hearing about his two daughters' elementary school science
experiments.
|
![]() | Matthew Nelson, Chief Operating Officer
Prior to joining GreatSchools, Matthew cut his online teeth as a founding member of Wired
Digital, where he launched one of the first ad-supported websites, HotWired. Later he
co-founded Organic, an interactive communications and advertising agency, where he helped
develop first generation websites for brands like Levi's, Nike and Saturn. Organic IPO'd
in early 2000, reaching a market cap of $6B. Matthew then brought his digital expertise to
improve operations and management systems at several non-profits, including Tides and,
most recently, Aspire Public Schools, a charter management organization of top performing
public schools serving underserved communities throughout California. Matthew earned his
MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Matthew's freshman debut in Battle
of the Bands at
Nicolet High School
was a formative step in his ongoing obsession with playing live music.
|
![]() | Lilly Fu, Chief Financial Officer
Lilly was one of the first recruits of Teach
for America, where she taught second grade in Oakland, California. Lilly
earned her BA in political science and economics from Wellesley College
and her MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School. She led the financial metrics
and evaluation efforts at the Stupski Foundation, a private philanthropic
institution dedicated to improving urban public schools nationwide, and
later became the finance director of an online subsidiary of Sony Pictures
Entertainment. She has also held finance positions at PriceWaterhouse,
Oracle, and AT&T. Lilly attended
Mills High School
in Millbrae,
California, where she earned the coveted "top car washer" title for the
National Honor Society fundraiser.
|
![]() | Carol Lloyd, Executive Editor
As the Executive Editor for GreatSchools, Carol brings a wealth of editorial expertise to the organization. Prior to GreatSchools, Carol was an award-winning weekly columnist from the San Francisco Chronicle for ten years and headed the education section as an editor at Salon.com. In 2009, she received a mini-fellowship on Global Health Reporting from the Kaiser Foundation for her coverage of neglected diseases published in the San Francisco Chronicle and Seed Magazine. Her journalism on culture, education and family life has been widely published and anthologized for the past 15 years, appearing in The New York Times Magazine, This American Life radio show, Salon.com, The Los Angeles Times, and the SF Weekly as well as being featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation, PRI's The World and KQED's Forum and To the Best of Our Knowledge. Her bestselling book "Creating a Life Worth Living" was published in 1997 by Harper Collins. It was at the
York School
in Monterey, California where she tried to balance the mind-money-body conundrum by reading Chaucer, starting a catering company and continually trying to learn to surf.
|
![]() | Karissa Sparks, Vice President, Marketing and Research
Karissa has over 16 years of experience in the web analytics, online marketing, SEO/SEM, and web production fields. Her keen analytical sense combined with her marketing intelligence help make GreatSchools one of the leading technology nonprofits in the education sector today. Prior to joining GreatSchools, Karissa was a Senior Marketing Analyst for MarketTools, and held various positions in product management at Bridgeline Software (formerly iapps), Raffa P.C., and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. While Karissa has worked in both the private and nonprofit sectors, she has always gravitated towards improving technology systems for nonprofits. She has a B.A. in Communications Studies from Hollins University and lives with her family in Berkeley, California. As a high school basketball star at
Taft High School, she was known for drawing fouls from the opposing team and never missing a free throw.
|
![]() | Molly Vitorte, Vice President and Managing Director, College Bound
Molly brings to GreatSchools over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit,
for-profit and higher education sectors, with a focus on improving college
access for minority and low-income students. Previously, she was the
national director of outreach and alliances at the Hispanic Scholarship
Fund and the associate director of Stanford University's Center for Latin
American Studies. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BA
in international studies and earned a PhD in Latin American Studies from
the University of California at Berkeley. Her diverse experience began at a
tiny international school in Brazil. During high school she played the lead
role in several of the city's English-speaking community theatre productions.
|












