John J-H Kim, Chief Executive Officer
John is Co-Founder and CEO of The District Management Council, an organization focused on bringing the best management and leadership practices to its network of public school district leaders and managers from around the country.
John brings to DMC his extensive background in education, business and management. John has started and led several organizations in the education field. John was the founding CEO of Chancellor Beacon Academies, Inc., a school management company that grew to serve more than 20,000 children. John started and served as President of Kaplan Learning Services, the institutional division of Kaplan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Washington Post Company. Prior to joining Kaplan, Mr. Kim co-founded Crimson & Brown Associates (CBA), a leading targeted career services firm assisting companies to identify and hire minority students. He served as Chairman and CEO of CBA until its sale to Kaplan.
Nicholas P. Morgan, Managing Director
Mr. Morgan joined DMC at its inception in January 2004 and leads the firm’s research and consulting activities. In addition to his responsibilities at DMC, Mr. Morgan is an adjunct member of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. A son of two educators, Mr. Morgan has had a lifelong interest in improving the quality of public education.
Nate Levenson, Managing Director
Nathan Levenson has spent much of his career in the private sector, starting as a strategic planning management consultant, owning a midsized manufacturer of highly engineered machinery, and as a turnaround consultant helping struggling firms.
Garrett Smith, Senior Consultant
Garrett Smith joined DMC in 2009 as a Senior Consultant, bringing a combination of experience in management and education. He began his career as a Consultant for Bain & Company, where he worked across a wide variety of industries and practice areas, including marketing & growth strategy, strategic planning, and change management. After leaving Bain, Garrett has worked for a variety of education-focused organizations. He was a Consultant to the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the US Department of Education where he worked on a range of K-12 policy issues and helped to develop a $5 billion college grant program. Garrett has also worked as a project manager with Baltimore City Public Schools and as a Consultant to the National Math and Science Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to scaling up proven programs in math and science education.
Kathleen Choi, Managing Editor for The District Management Journal.
Prior to working at DMC, Ms. Choi worked as a business and strategy consultant for a variety of clients including The Committee of Concerned Journalists (University of Missouri), CNN, and Women.com. Ms. Choi also spent more than fifteen years in the banking sector as a Vice President of BankBoston. Her banking experience includes work in the International Corporate Finance Group, where she structured financings throughout Latin America and Asia. Ms. Choi also worked extensively with Fortune 500 U.S. multinational corporations serving their domestic and international funding and banking service needs. Her strong interest in education dates back to her very first job as a child actress for seven years on Children’s Television Workshop’s Sesame Street. Ms. Choi currently serves on the board of the Edward W. Brooke Charter School in Roslindale, MA.
Marty Buss Smith, Marketing Director
Prior to joining DMC, Ms. Smith served as marketing consultant to a variety of businesses ranging from large technology companies to small not-for-profit organizations. She started her career at various Chicago- and Boston-based advertising agencies, including Leo Burnett Technology Group. Ms. Smith has over 15 years of experience working with non-profits, B2B and B2C companies, executing a range of marketing communications programs including Branding, Marketing Strategy Development, Marketing Communications Planning, Marketplace and Competitive Analyses and Social Media Marketing.
Richard Viard, VP Product Development
Richard brings over 20 years of experience in technology and innovative product design to DMC. In the 1990s, Richard co-founded SmarterKids.com, a company that developed some of the first CD-ROM Edutainment products, early childhood assessment games, and an educational e-commerce platform. The company went public on NASDAQ in 1999.
George Russell, Superintendent
Eugene School District 4J, Eugene OR
18,000 students
Pay-for-Performance Programs: Strategies, Structures, and Funding
By Nicholas P. Morgan & Daniel Schiff
