Board of Trustees

David Sweeny provides guidance and technical assistance as a founding advisor on real estate and facilities. David is a Founding CEO and current board member of Civic Builders and formerly the Vice-President for Real Estate and Finance at Children’s Aid Society. David is a seasoned executive motivated by improving non-profit financial performance through leveraging private sector strategies and best practices.

David has a strong track record in sourcing social-impact capital and startup grants, generating earned income for government-funded agencies, launching and scaling social enterprise, and supporting organization change. He has a deep understanding of real estate, opportunity zones, and how to bring large-scale facilities projects to on-time, on-budget completion. At Children's Aid Society, David designed and executed a five-year strategic plan to reorient the agency’s real estate and finance practices to better support business and program priorities. The assignment included $100M in asset sales, $80M of new acquisitions, 190,000 square feet of new construction, and the issuance of $75M in tax-exempt revenue bonds. He drove improved performance across the company’s portfolio of forty three sites, including 400,000 square feet of charter schools, medical clinics, community centers and administrative offices. David is an Advisory Member of LISC, Chairperson of the Disability Investment Fund, and was named by Crain's New York Business as New Yorker of the Week.

Jennifer Weber is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an education consultant. She has consulted with public and charter schools across the country, supporting instructional design, evidence-based practices, and school improvement initiatives. She has over a decade of experience teaching graduate-level courses in the science of behavior, research design, and evidence-based instruction. She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Behavior Analysis from Columbia University.

Josh Andrew is the Head of School at Atlanta Classical Academy in Georgia, a K-12 public charter school founded in 2014. Mr. Andrew's career in education began with Teach For America where he served as a 9th grade English teacher at Cody High School on the west side of Detroit. In 2016, he joined the faculty of Atlanta Classical where he's worked as an English teacher, Academic Dean, Upper School Principal, and now Head of School. Under his leadership, Atlanta Classical has been named among the top 100 public charter high schools in the United States by US News, achieved SAT scores in the top 1% of all public schools in Georgia, graduated seven classes with 100% acceptance into college, received the highest marks in the state on the required year-end English and history exams for all public high school students, and twice won the Henry Salvatori Prize for Excellence in Teaching. 

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Hillsdale College, and earned his Master of Arts in Educational Studies from the University of Michigan. Mr. Andrew also teaches Modern European Literature to seniors. He has written about education in The Atlantic, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Detroit News, and NPR.

Sarah Hawkins is the CEO of the East Region of Hines, Hines, the global real estate investment, development, and property manager, and a member of the firm’s global Executive Committee. She is responsible for all development, acquisition, asset management and operations activity in the East Region, which includes active offices in New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. Previously, she served as the East Region’s Chief Operating Officer, and prior to that she was a Managing Director in the New York regional office. Prior to joining Hines as an associate in 2011, she was an associate at Fortress Investment Group and before that an analyst at The Blackstone Group. Hawkins earned her BA and BBA from the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Katharine Moana Birbalsingh is a British teacher and education reform advocate who is the founder and head Mistress of the Michaela Community School in Wembley, England, the highest performing public school in Great Britain. Birbalsingh is the author of two books, Singleholic (2009) and To Miss with Love (2011), and editor of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way (2016) and Michaela: The Power of Culture (2020). She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). Ms. Birbalsingh is a formal advisor to the leadership team at Vertex Partnership Academies.