As the founding fund lead for The Studio, Lizz leads the team that drives earlier stage investing at Blue Meridian. In addition, she provides strategic and executional leadership on critical business priorities, explores new philanthropic investment opportunities, leads due diligence on potential Blue Meridian investees, and manages relationships with current investees.
In her prior work on the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation portfolio team, Lizz provided strategic counsel to select Youth Development Fund grantees. She also supported the development and execution of portfolio strategy. Prior to her work in philanthropy, Lizz spent over 12 years in senior leadership roles with leading social sector nonprofits focused on K-12. She was the Chief Growth Officer at New Classrooms Innovation Partners, a national nonprofit that develops and partners with schools and districts to implement personalized learning models. Before that she spent five years as the Chief Operating Officer for Explore Schools, a network of charter schools in Brooklyn, NY. Earlier, Lizz served as the Director of New Site Development for KIPP national, helping it expand from 38 to 88 charter schools across the US. She began her career in strategic communications in roles at the Democratic National Committee and The White House before serving as Director of Publicity for Harper Perennial at HarperCollins Publishers.
Lizz has served on several boards, including those of KIPP Gaston (NC) College Preparatory, KIPP Ujima Village in Baltimore, and Harlem’s DREAM Charter School.
She earned a BA at George Washington University and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.