Catalyzing Early-Career Potential in the AI Era

Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm.

From February 1989 through March 1991, Rice served on President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Council staff. She served as director, then senior director, of Soviet and East European Affairs, as well as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Rice also served as special assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

From January 2005 to January 2009, Rice served as the 66th Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first black woman to hold the post. Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) from January 2001 to January 2005, the first woman to hold the position.

Erik Brynjolfsson is one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of technology and artificial intelligence. He is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), and Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. He also is the Ralph Landau Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Professor by Courtesy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Department of Economics, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

One of the most-cited authors on the economics of information, Brynjolfsson was among the first researchers to measure productivity contributions of IT and the complementary role of organizational capital and other intangibles.

Devika Gopal Agge is Chief Development & Employer Services Officer at Pursuit, where she leads fundraising, employer partnerships, and the development of new workforce pathways that connect low-income adults to quality jobs in the AI economy. She has helped design and grow Pursuit’s employer-facing models, including partnerships that place early-career AI talent into small businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations to deliver real-world projects while building career mobility. Her work sits at the intersection of philanthropy, employer engagement, and public-private partnership, with a focus on turning innovation in AI training into practical economic opportunity. She holds a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Riya Bhamre is a recent graduate from UC Riverside with a B.S. in Biology. She currently works as a Certified Clinical Medical Assistant in Internal Medicine, where she developed a deeper interest in patient care while pursuing the Pre-Med track.

Bharat Chandar is a labor economist working on understanding AI’s impact on work. His recent projects include work with Erik Brynjolfsson and Ruyu Chen tracking “canaries in the coal mine” for entry-level employment changes in jobs exposed to AI. He also recently surveyed the state of knowledge about AI and labor markets.

His ongoing work has focused on three areas. The first asks, how will workers adjust if we see AI-driven changes in hiring? Which workers will have an easier or more challenging time if displaced, and where should we target support? The second asks, how can we use AI to make it easier for people to learn new things and pursue new forms of work? Third, how will impacts of AI differ across the world?

Kelly Cure serves as Vice President of Public Policy at the Bay Area Council, where she leads initiatives focused on AI, the future of work, and addressing the talent pipeline challenges facing the Council’s 400 member companies across the Bay Area. Her work centers on helping employers navigate rapid technological change while expanding access to high-quality employment opportunities for workers across the region. 

Kelly brings nearly two decades of global economic development experience and over ten years as a social entrepreneur. In 2019, during her MBA at Berkeley Haas she founded Skillful.ly, an equitable employment platform launched as a venture-backed Public Benefit Corporation. She led the company through its early growth and now serves in an advisory role.

Earlier in her career, Kelly worked across Europe, the United Kingdom, and Africa, beginning as a management consultant with Deloitte before launching her entrepreneurial journey. She has founded two companies—both still operating today—and regularly guest lectures for visiting global entrepreneurship groups and at the University of California, Berkeley.

Isabelle C. Hau is the executive director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, where she leverages brain science, learning sciences and technology to champion innovative, effective, and inclusive learning solutions.

Previously a successful impact investor, Isabelle led the US education practice at Omidyar Network and Imaginable Futures, where she invested in mission-driven organizations that have reached millions of learners. She is the author of Love to Learn: The Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education. At Stanford University, Isabelle teaches the class Design to Equip Learners in Under-Resourced Communities. She serves on the board of EDC and Design Tech High School, on the steering committee of the EdSAFE AI Alliance, the Brookings Institution Global AI Taskforce, and the World Economic Forum’s 4.0 education alliance.

Named as one of the 100 most inspiring women by Harvard Business School, 2025 World Education Medal finalist, 2026 Top 100 Influencers in EdTech, and 2026 Power of Women Award, Isabelle has also received distinctions in early childhood education and human-centered artificial intelligence. She co-starred with Grover of Sesame Street. Her lifelong professional goal is to bring the love of learning to each and every child.

Christopher Hendrix is a Site Supervisor at SBCC Thrive LA and a Master of Social Work student at California State University, Fullerton. Rooted in Los Angeles and community based federalism, he is passionate about youth empowerment, equity-centered public administration, and strategic urban development. Through serving on advisory boards, special projects, and supporting cross sector initiatives, he brings lived experience and a grounded nuance to contemporary social science.

He believes every young person should have access to mentorship and networks of support. While education and training are important, it’s often the guidance of trusted mentors and the connections they help foster that open doors, build confidence, and provide the clarity needed to navigate a career journey. Through these avenues, career navigation turns into a shared commitment of social capital, guidance, and intergenerational stewardship. He hopes for more programs to practice this model.

Zara (‘zar-uh’) Holland is a twenty year-old woman who is exploring her career options after being a full-time caregiver to her late parent. She believes that in order for a quality-based, complex and a thriving career ecosystem for all to survive we need the insights from people of all walks of life, including those who are in stages of rebuilding and re-imagining. As Maya Angelo once said, “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.”. She believes that every young person should have a clear access point of practical, unbiased information that enlightens them about all options and opportunities available so that they’re able to explore and grow into their fullest potential.

Tiffany Hsieh is a senior director in JFF’s Center for Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Work, where she helps lead the organization’s AI strategy and programs. In that role, she provides support on AI initiatives to education and workforce organizations, organizes cross-sector meetings and promotes collaboration, and translates research into actionable insights. Several publications, including Fortune, Work Shift, Education Week, and Inside Higher Ed, have cited her and featured her perspectives on artificial intelligence and its impact on education and the workforce.

Tiffany brings expertise in strategy and operations, with a strong focus on artificial intelligence and its applications. She excels at partner and stakeholder engagement, building meaningful relationships that drive results, and is skilled in facilitation and training to support teams and organizations in achieving their goals.

Tiffany has more than 10 years of experience working with corporations, nonprofits, and startups to drive growth and impact outcomes. Before joining JFF, she designed education benefits and upskilling programs for large corporations at Guild. Previously, she led strategic consulting engagements at Accenture and Entangled Solutions. She began her career as a special education teacher.

Christina is a Postdoc at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, where she studies how technology reshapes work, skills, and the decisions firms make. She also holds affiliations as a Honorary Research Fellow at the UCL School of Management and as a Guest Researcher at the ifo Institute in Munich.

She has worked with large datasets ranging from apprenticeship curricula she collected herself to administrative records and millions of online job postings, and she also conducts field experiments. Her work examines how skills evolve, how hiring changes, and what happens when new technologies like AI enter the workplace.

Fernanda Ibarra Lievano is an undergraduate at Stanford University studying Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Education. Originally from Morelia, Mexico, she developed a deep commitment to educational equity through her experience teaching in rural schools in Michoacan, where she saw firsthand both the transformative power of learning and the barriers that keep many students from accessing it.

Her interests lie at the intersection of technology and education, particularly in how emerging technologies like AI can be designed to support more meaningful, engaging, and inclusive learning experiences. Fernanda is driven by the belief that education should not be a privilege reserved for a few, but a living pathway to dignity, opportunity, and human potential. She hopes to contribute to building learning systems that reach farther, inspire more deeply, and open doors for those who have too often been left outside them.

Tod Loofbourrow is the CEO of ViralGains, a digital video advertising company, and a longtime tech executive and entrepreneur. Since 2011, he has served as Entrepreneur in Residence at the Center for Digital Business at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Before joining ViralGains, he was co-founder and president of iRobot Healthcare, a business unit of iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ: IRBT) devoted to developing healthcare applications to achieve the mission of “adding a million years of independent living to our customers and their families.” He also founded, and served as chairman and CEO at, Authoria, a $38 million software-as-a-service leader in the health/benefits information and talent management space, serving over four million users and delivering over one billion page views a year to customers. Authoria helped define the talent management space with Gartner and emerged as a top player in the field, leading to a successful sale in fall 2008.

Tod was educated at Harvard and Oxford universities and taught graduate courses on Internet Commerce and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University for seven years. He has lectured at Stanford, MIT Sloan School, Harvard Business School, Babson College, and others. He is the author or chapter contributor to six books—the first being a 20,000-copy trade bestseller on computer science and robotics written at the age of 16.

Will Markow is an internationally recognized expert on the future of work and the Founder and CEO of FourOne Insights, a research and advisory firm focused on the impact of emerging trends and technologies on the workforce.

Will has advised hundreds of companies, technology vendors, training providers, workforce development organizations, government agencies, and multiple White House administrations on key issues related to the future of work, skills-based hiring, and related topics. His research has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and numerous other national media outlets. He has also testified before Congress on growing the cybersecurity talent pipeline.

Will previously spent 12 years with Lightcast, where he oversaw their workforce consulting and research team. Will also oversaw the development of CyberSeek.org – a cybersecurity career exploration portal frequently cited by national media outlets and multiple presidential administrations

Amber Orenstein is the Head of K–12 Strategy at Wayground (formerly Quizizz), where she leads cross-functional initiatives that help districts implement their instructional priorities through scaled classroom practices. Over the past 15+ years, she has worked across curriculum, product, and leadership roles at MIND Research Institute, Imagine Learning, and BetterLesson, with a focus on formative assessment, instructional coherence, and responsible, teacher-first uses of AI that support learner-led, career-connected experiences and meaningful skill development for all students.

Amber is especially interested in how innovation and sustainable business models can build systems that are fair, durable, and supportive of educators and the students they serve, because equitable pathways to opportunity only last when the systems behind them do.

Ben Pring is a widely recognized IT futurist, author and professional thought leader with a storied track record analyzing the cutting edge of business and technology. A winner of Gartner’s prestigious annual Thought Leader award, a Bilderberg Meeting participant, a member of the advisory board of the Labor and Work Life program at Harvard Law School. Named as one of the 30 leading management thinkers by Thinkers 50 and one of the 10 leading influencers on the future of work by Onalytica. Co-author of best-selling and award-winning books, including What to Do When Machines Do Everything and Monster: Taming the Machines that Rule Our Lives, Jobs, and Future (2021) which was a Financial Times Book of the Month.

David Soo is vice president of strategic engagements and policy at JFF. He leads key initiatives across JFF and JFFLabs as part of JFF’s executive team, with a particular focus on building external engagement and influence, including through JFF’s Horizons summit and in-person and virtual engagements. 

Before joining JFF, Soo was senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Under Secretary and Office of Educational Technology. He was a key architect of the department’s higher education innovation agenda during the Obama administration.

Brooke Stafford-Brizard is senior vice president for Innovation & Impact at the Carnegie Foundation.

As senior vice president, Brooke oversees Carnegie’s research and development activities and stewards cross-sector partnerships to accelerate the Foundation’s mission.

As an educator, researcher, and philanthropic leader, Brooke has spent the past three decades focused on bringing a more holistic approach, grounded in the science of learning and development, to schools and classrooms. Most recently, Brooke served as vice president for research to practice at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. There, she led the organization’s grantmaking in education to support researchers, educators, and policymakers in their efforts to transform our education system toward one grounded in whole child development. Throughout Brooke’s career, she has served in a range of scholarly and practice-focused roles, including serving as director of data strategy and evaluation at the New York City Department of Education’s District 79. While in Rochester, NY, she co-founded an all-girls public charter school. She began her career as a middle school teacher in the Bronx.

As a well-respected expert in the learning sciences field, Brooke regularly contributes opinion pieces, talks, and papers focused on holistic student development. She holds a doctorate (Ph.D.) in cognitive science in education from Columbia University, is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow, and a member of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Network.

Mitchell Stevens is Professor of Education at Stanford, where he convenes the Learning Society project and the Pathways Network. He studies the history, finance, and politics of postsecondary education in the United States and worldwide. The author of award-winning studies of home education and selective admissions, his most recent books are Remaking College: The Changing Ecology of Higher Education and Seeing the World: How US Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era. He is Co-Director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, and Academic Editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. He has written scholarly articles for a variety of academic journals and editorial for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other venues.

Alex Swartsel leads JFFLabs, the innovation practice of Jobs for the Future (JFF), which helps decision-makers across the education-to-career landscape understand and prepare for the emerging trends, technologies, and innovations shaping the future of work and learning.  She launched JFF’s Center for Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Work, shaping policy, practice, and investment in innovative solutions to ensure the future powered by AI makes us all better off. 

Before joining JFFLabs, Alex served as chief of development, finance, and external affairs for Teach for America’s Washington, DC, region. She’s held leadership roles with the Motion Picture Association’s global policy team, as well as U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse.

Alex chairs the board of directors of Capital City Symphony and is also a longtime member and former chorus president of the Choral Arts Society of Washington. She holds a BA summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Dr. Rowena M. Tomaneng has been a multicultural educator in the California Community Colleges for 30 years. She is currently the Deputy Chancellor for the California Community College since 2024, responsible for implementing the Vision 2030 goals of increasing with equity student access, success, and support through three strategic directions: Equitable Baccalaureate Attainment, Workforce and Economic Development, and generative AI and the Future of Learning. She oversees seven divisions; Academic Affairs; Student Services; Workforce and Economic Development; Research, Analytics, and Data; Program Operations and System Initiatives; Equity, Innovation, and Institutional Effectiveness; and Strategic Educational and Workforce Initiatives.

Beyond the Chancellor’s, Dr. Tomaneng serves as President of Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education (APAHE) Board of Directors, executive member of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), member of the American Council on Education Strengthening Institutions Roundtable, Commissioner for the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), and other organizations. Dr. Tomaneng’s teaching, research and publications explore human rights, social movements, transnational feminism, and racial equity in education. She has written and contributed to a variety of publications including the Journal of Multicultural Perspectives, Overcoming Educational Racism in the Community College, and Transformative Practices for Minority Student Success: Accomplishments of Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions.

A first-generation immigrant from the Philippines and community college transfer student from Cypress College, Dr. Tomaneng received her EdD from the University of San Francisco’s School of Education in International and Multicultural Education with a concentration in Human Rights Education, MA in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and BA in English from the University of California, Irvine.

Kathryn Uhl is a Director at Jobs for the Future (JFF), where she works to ensure that the changing economy and AI expand pathways to quality jobs for workers and learners across California. Her work spans workforce development, postsecondary education, and economic mobility, connecting research, philanthropy, and practice to drive systemic change. Prior to JFF, Kathryn brought a human-centered design lens to her work at IDEO and worked across the financial services and tech industries for a decade. She holds master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University and a bachelor’s from the University of California, San Diego.

Joel Vargas is vice president of the Education practice at JFF, overseeing programs focused on improving learning systems and outcomes. He was previously vice president of programs and launched our West Coast office in 2015.

Joel Vargas brings deep expertise in designing and implementing research, systems changes, and state policy agendas that integrate high school, college, and career pathways. He creates policy frameworks, tools, and model legislation to advance these efforts, and provides technical assistance to state task forces and policy working groups. Before joining JFF, Vargas directed, initiated, and studied programs designed to help students from underrepresented populations enter and complete college.