Who We Are

Margo Roen, Founder & CEO

Margo started her career in public education as a high school teacher in pre-Katrina New Orleans. She returned to the city immediately after Katrina’s landfall working 90+ hours a week as a Federal employee running the first disaster recovery center located in downtown New Orleans. Margo’s Katrina experience showed her, at both a national and local level, how systems can be designed to help or hurt the people they’re designed to serve. For her, examining these systemic questions through the lens of public education is the most critical work.   

After 6 months on the front line of Katrina recovery, Margo returned to the classroom as a founding Physics teacher at New Orleans Charter Science and Math HS. She has gone on to work as a school leader, innovative school model developer, charter authorizer, school district Deputy Superintendent, national education consultant, and nonprofit executive. She most recently served as the interim chief of staff for a parent empowerment organization, utilizing her expertise in systems, policy, and organizational development to advance the work of revolutionary parent leaders. 

Over the past two decades, Margo has worked extensively with schools, school systems, and state education agencies to modernize public education systems and make them student and family centered. She holds degrees in arts administration, business, and dance from Tulane University and a masters in public policy from Vanderbilt University. Margo currently serves as Board Chair for The Memphis Lift.