The New Teacher Project's 10-person leadership team brings to the organization over 90 years of collective experience in education and more than 80 years in organizational management. Their experience as education policy experts, as executives, and as public school teachers guides them in shaping the organization's goals, services and strategy.


Ariela Rozman
Chief Executive Officer

Ariela Rozman began her tenure with The New Teacher Project (TNTP) in 2001 as Vice President of Marketing. Prior to becoming Chief Executive Officer in 2007, she served for four years as Vice President of Teaching Fellows Programs, growing TNTP’s largest business line to a staff of more than 60 individuals and overseeing the launch of 12 new programs in cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, and Oakland. Today, the Teaching Fellows Programs line supplies high-need school districts with approximately 3,000 high-quality teachers per year and accounts for over half of the organization’s revenue. Ariela also chaired TNTP’s Strategy Committee, a team comprised of TNTP’s senior leadership staff, for two years. Before joining The New Teacher Project, Ariela led the Online Marketing group for PlanetRx.com, which included managing the company's online new customer acquisition strategy, media buying and creative agency relationships, and large partnerships with companies such as AOL and Yahoo!. Ariela has also served as Special Assistant to the CEO at Muresco, a retail and manufacturing conglomerate in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and as a consultant at Bain & Co., a leading strategy consulting firm, working with Fortune 500 companies to improve their overall growth strategies and revenue opportunities. She holds a BA in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia.
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Timothy Daly
President

As President of The New Teacher Project (TNTP), Timothy Daly manages TNTP's efforts to engage the wider educational community in the organization’s work to close the achievement gap by increasing teacher quality. Prior to his appointment as President in 2007, Tim served as Vice President for Policy and Research, launching partnerships with large urban districts to align district policies and processes to support student achievement. The policy team has produced a number of influential analyses focused on districts such as Portland, Chicago, and Milwaukee. Tim has been with TNTP since 2001 and previously served as TNTP's managing partner for multiple contracts including the NYC Teaching Fellows program (NYCTF), the largest of The New Teacher Project's alternate route to certification programs, with approximately 8,000 active teachers in over 1,000 schools across New York City. Tim began his career in education as a Teach For America corps member at Northeast Middle School in Baltimore. He holds a BA in American Studies from Northwestern University and a MA in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University.
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Layla Avila
Vice President of Teaching Fellows Programs

As Vice President of Teaching Fellows Programs, Layla Avila oversees TNTP's largest business line and a growing staff of over 60 individuals. The Teaching Fellows Programs line supplies high-need school districts with roughly 2,700 high-quality teachers per year and accounts for approximately 60 percent of the organization's revenue. Prior to becoming Vice President, Layla served as a Partner for the business line, managing the implementation of existing and potential projects across the Southwest. Among her other accomplishments, Layla oversaw the design and implementation the Oakland Teaching Fellows, a teacher recruitment, training, and support program for the Oakland Unified School District, which resulted in the hiring of over 130 exceptionally talented teachers. Before joining The New Teacher Project, Layla worked as a bilingual and ESL teacher at August A. Mayo Elementary School in Compton, CA, where she also served as an English Language Development specialist on the school's Leadership Team. In addition, she served as an analyst for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence For Hispanic Americans, an interagency working group established by President Clinton to increase educational opportunities and achieve educational excellence for Hispanic Americans. In that role, she tracked federal legislation related to education and conducted research on issues affecting Hispanic education. Layla holds a BA in Economics from Columbia University and attained a Master's degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University before joining Teach For America in 1997. Layla was elected to the South Whittier School District Board of Trustees in November 2005.
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Karolyn Belcher
Vice President of Human Capital

Karolyn Belcher serves as The New Teacher Project's Vice President of Human Capital, overseeing the organization's efforts to recruit, select, and develop an exceptional staff of educational leaders. Karolyn began her career as a charter corps member of Teach For America, teaching science in New Orleans, Louisiana. After completing her two-year commitment, Karolyn joined the national staff of Teach For America, where she led its pre-service training institute in Houston, TX for over four years. Karolyn was one of the first employees of The New Teacher Project, working on contracts in Massachusetts, New York, and Philadelphia. She left the organization in 1999 to serve as the founding school director of the John A. Reisenbach Charter School, one of the first three charter schools in New York State. Located in central Harlem, the school served 405 students in grades K-8 by its fifth year of operation. Most recently, Karolyn served as an Instructor/Program Coordinator in the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. In this role, she supervised students' administrative internships in public and private schools, taught a course on leadership skills, and coordinated all aspects of the degree programs administered by the Klingenstein Center for Independent School Education, the premier graduate program for aspiring independent and charter school leaders. Karolyn graduated from Mount Holyoke College with honors in Biological Science. She has a Master of Arts in Education Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University where she is continuing to work towards her doctorate. She currently is the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Explore Charter School in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, which recently earned charter renewal and recognition by the Center for Education Reform as a 2007 National Charter School of the Year.
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Rachel Grainger
Vice President of Policy & Research

As Vice President of Policy & Research, Rachel Grainger is responsible for leading The New Teacher Project’s current district, state and national policy and research initiatives and setting the course for the organization’s future policy analysis and reform projects. Prior to joining TNTP, Rachel practiced law for nearly 13 years, working as a litigator for the New York office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom before later joining the Washington, D.C. law firm of Swidler Berlin. She also served as a lawyer and member of the management team at Radianz Americas where, among other accomplishments, she led the successful negotiation of numerous strategic commercial transactions. In addition, Rachel has worked for the Democratic National Committee as well as the 1996-1997 Presidential Inaugural Committee for the Clinton administration. The product of a family of urban educators, Rachel has maintained a longstanding interest in education policy and engaged in urban education issues from multiple angles. She has taught conflict and dispute resolution to fifth graders in East Palo Alto, California; assisted in the development of an Education Law course at Stanford Law School; and served on the Board of Directors of Directions for Our Youth, a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing dropout rates in New York City public schools. Rachel holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a BA in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, College Park.

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Sarah Heine
Vice President of Training & Certification

As Vice President of Training & Certification, Sarah Heine oversees the design and implementation of TNTP’s teacher training and certification programs as well as the organization’s curricular products. Immediately prior to this role she served as Partner for the Texas Teaching Fellows, a statewide initiative that recruits, selects, trains and certifies high-quality teachers across four geographic regions in Texas.  Sarah also served as Director of Site Launch and Development and was responsible for establishing new Training and Certification program sites. In this role, she successfully registered TNTP as a teacher certification provider in the State of California.  She previously served as Program Director for TNTP’s contract with Mercy College (NY), where she was responsible for the creation, management and expansion of the New Teacher Residency program, a joint Mercy College/TNTP/NYC Department of Education program to develop effective urban teachers.  During her time in that role, more than 900 alternate route teachers earned their master’s degree and certification through the program. Sarah’s career with TNTP began in 2000 when she was Site Manager for the Kansas City Teaching Fellows.  Sarah was a Teach for America corps member who taught high school English in New Orleans. She holds a BA in English from Boston University.
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Boris Khmelnitskiy
Vice President of Information Technology

As Vice President of Information Technology for The New Teacher Project (TNTP), Boris Khmelnitskiy oversees technology direction and strategy, manages design and implementation of internal technology projects, and ensures IT alignment with the organization's business priorities. TNTP's Information Technology team offers a comprehensive suite of proprietary web-based applications to the organization's school district and state clients nationwide. Additionally, IT arms internal staff with a range of solutions that automates operational aspects of the teacher recruitment, selection, training, placement and hiring process, and focuses on data intelligence for reporting and analysis. Boris manages internal and external infrastructure, datacenter operations, and technology vendor and support team relationships. Boris started his career as a system analyst for Lehman Brothers and then joined the global financial services firm Morgan Stanley in 1997. Throughout his tenure at Morgan Stanley, Boris helped develop one of the most robust and complex equity trading infrastructures on Wall Street and participated in business expansion initiatives in London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. In 2004, Boris moved from application development to Learning & Development, Morgan Stanley's internal education organization. As a co-manager of Talent Management for Technology, Boris coordinated development and enhancement of new curricula, designed and implemented strategic learning plans, evaluated learning materials and instructional techniques, oversaw relationships with training delivery vendors and supervised the IT Analyst Training Program, one of the foremost technology induction programs on Wall Street. Boris has taught Math and Computer Science at high school and college levels throughout his professional career and actively participates in education-related community initiatives. He holds a BA in Mathematics/Computer Science and MS in Computer Science, both from New York University.
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Karla Oakley
Vice President of Teacher Quality Innovations

As Vice President for The New Teacher Project’s Teacher Quality Innovations line, Karla Oakley oversees the generation and execution of innovative pilot projects that further the organization’s commitment to sourcing, training, certifying and retaining highly effective teachers. Karla’s tenure with TNTP began in June of 2000 when she was hired as New York State Partner and charged with launching the NYC Teaching Fellows program, a contract with the New York City Department of Education that recruited and placed more than 1,500 teachers in hard-to-staff schools in its first two years. From 2003-2008, Karla served as TNTP’s Vice President of Training & Certification, overseeing the development and expansion of the Practitioner Teacher Program and all of TNTP’s instructional curriculum development. Prior to TNTP, Karla spent two years with Andersen Consulting in their Human Performance practice, working primarily in the financial services industry. Her career in education started with Teach For America, first as a corps member in the Mississippi Delta then on the national staff with roles in new teacher support and portfolio assessment. Karla holds a BS in Psychology from Duke University.
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Carol Sterlacci
Chief Financial Officer

As Chief Financial Officer, Carol Sterlacci oversees the planning, development, and management of TNTP's financial functions including financial operations and reporting, internal controls, and financial strategy. Carol comes to TNTP with a Big Four accounting background and over 17 years experience in financial services, accounting, and accounting technology. Most recently, Carol served as the Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Transamerica Fund Advisors, where she was responsible for financial management, technology, and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for a $30 billion mutual fund complex. Previously she held various positions at Morgan Stanley, J.P Morgan, and Ernst & Young, where her contributions included assessments of operating effectiveness and internal control, development of accounting technology to support internal and client needs, and conducting audits. Carol is a certified public accountant, and earned her MBA from Columbia Business School, where she developed her interest in social enterprise.
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Victoria Van Cleef
Vice President of Staffing Initiatives

As Vice President of Staffing Initiatives for The New Teacher Project, Victoria is charged with growing this new business line. She oversees projects that focus on building school-level capacity to make effective hires and staffing chronically low-performing schools. In her previous role as Vice President of Business Development & Communications, she oversaw the establishment of TNTP's partnerships with school districts, state departments of education and other educational organizations, and managed the organization's marketing strategy and goals. Prior to joining The New Teacher Project, Victoria served as a consultant to the Stupski Foundation, identifying best practices to support whole district reform efforts, and as Senior Research Associate and Special Assistant to the Dean of New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, coordinating projects devoted to strengthening the teacher force in high-need districts. She has served as Special Assistant to the Chancellor for the New York City public schools under two administrations, working on both instructional and operational initiatives. Victoria has also worked in curriculum and product development for The Efficacy Institute, a national non-profit educational consulting firm. She holds a BA in Classical Civilizations from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Master's in Public Policy Analysis from New York University's Wagner School of Public Service. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the YWCA of Memphis, TN.
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