Gerard Robinson served as Commissioner of Education for the State of Florida and Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia. His other leadership roles have included Executive Director of the Center for Advancing Opportunity and Director and President of the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Robinson also was a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

He is coeditor of Education for Liberation: The Politics of Promise and Reform Inside and Beyond America’s Prisons(2019) and Education Savings Accounts: The New Frontier in School Choice (2017). In addition, he cohosts The Learning Curve: National Education Podcast. Robinson has been published or quoted in AEI Ideas, Gallup News, Newsweek, The Hedgehog Review, the Hill, the New York Times, the Washington Examiner, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and US News & World Report.

He earned a BA from Howard University and an EdM from Harvard University, as well as an AA from El Camino Community College.

Andréa Backman is dedicated to helping students achieve meaningful employment opportunities and economic mobility through education. At Strategic Education, Inc., she chairs the Office of Employability, focused on bridging the gap between graduates and employers, and ensuring that students achieve a positive return on their educational investments. 

Andréa also serves as President of Strayer University, where she sets the vision for an innovative, impactful education that equips students with the skills needed to compete in a global economy. In this role, she is focused on educational access, holistic support and lasting employability gains for students and alumni. 

As one of the first in her family to earn a college education, and as a single mother to two boys, Andréa understands that the complexities of balancing career, school and family requires hard work and dedication. 

As a leader, Andréa is guided by her previous role as Dean of the Jack Welch Management Institute, where she was mentored by Jack Welch himself—an experience that significantly shaped her views on the role of education and mentorship for others. 

Andréa holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Mark Rosica has attended the William G. McGowan board since its inception in 1993 and served as a trustee of the Board since 2004.  Mark is a member of the finance and McGowan Fellows committees.

As a trained Marriage and Family Therapist and Career Counselor, Mark has a unique background where he has extensive experience creating career development and training programs, intervening and resolving interpersonal conflicts, working with adolescents and their families on life cycle issues, while also overseeing high-level managerial human resources. 

Mark is a recently retired associate professor at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology after 40 years of serving in a variety of administrative and faculty roles. Mark’s leadership positions at RIT included Associate Dean of Student and Academic Services, Chair of Counseling and Academic Advising Services, and Director of the Career Exploration Program, where he also was involved in a wide range of HR responsibilities.

 In his academic work, Mark was also a research faculty of the Center for Education Research Partnerships at RIT, an advisor/counselor helping bachelor level students enter PhD research programs, and an Institute Mediator for the Center for Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution.

Today, Mark consults with schools for deaf and hard of hearing programs across the country in best practices. He earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology at State University of New York at Oswego, studied Higher Education Administration in the Ed.D program at the University of Rochester and received his MS in rehabilitation counseling at Syracuse University.

Wadsworth runs the news division of Gannett Media, overseeing more than 5,000 journalists across 260 local news organizations and the flagship USA TODAY. She has been with Gannett for nearly 25 years, beginning as a reporter at the Rockford (III.) Register Star. In 2015, she was named Gannett’s first Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer. She helped to architect the company’s digital subscription strategy and created its Innovation Lab to foster intrapreneurship and human-centered design across the organization. In 2016, then- US Secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker appointed Wadsworth to a two-year term on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She currently serves on the board of directors of the News Media Alliance and the International News Media Association.   

Lenna serves as Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Salary.com, developing programs designed to increase cultural awareness and acceptance within Salary.com, while also leading company efforts to help clients conduct DE&I audits and execute action plans. As a member of the Salary.com’s CompData Consulting Practice, she also focuses on client engagements involving studies for base pay and total comp, pay equity and building DE&I knowledge offerings.

Lenna has 20 years of compensation management experience. Prior to joining Salary.com she held progressively complex roles in HR as a Compensation Manager/Senior Consultant and Strategic HR Business Partner. She has worked across various industries and companies, including Georgia Pacific, Coca Cola, Sun Trust Banks(Truist) and Bank of America.

A Certified Compensation Professional (CCP), Lenna holds a BA in Business Administration from the University of Memphis.

Matt brings over 20 years of experience managing marketing and product teams. At Trusaic, Matt is responsible for developing go-to-market strategy for Trusaic and delivering sustainable revenue growth by ensuring the long-term success of our customers. Matt oversees marketing, partnership marketing, and software product development and design.

Matt, formerly a group product manager with Intuit for over 15 years is an experienced marketing and product leader who has conceptualized, built, and scaled multiple SaaS businesses. He has vast knowledge across the human capital management spectrum, as well as a deep understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy. 

Matt holds a B.S. in chemistry, a B.S. in chemical engineering, an M.S in chemical engineering, and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Nevada.