Stories
Stories
The Business of Social Justice
Heidi Brooks (MBA 2003) is the chief operating officer of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, a nonprofit organization focused on strengthening public education through grants and advocacy. The foundation’s mission aims at ending the school-to-prison pipeline through disciplinary reform and further ensuring that schools with high needs receive the resources and funding to meet them.
“There is nothing more important than building the foundations for social change,” says Brooks. “Rosa Parks’ civil disobedience didn’t just happen because she wanted to sit one day; and gay marriage didn’t become legal in one day. These kinds of changes have decades of investment behind them.”
As COO, Brooks oversees strategic planning, operations, and finances, as well as the evaluation of programs to determine ways operations can be more efficient and have the greatest impact.
She says the work of the foundation—partnering with teachers’ unions and grassroots advocacy groups to make lasting and impactful policy changes—may be more important today than ever, as the Trump Administration threatens budget cuts to public education or possibly to eliminate the Department of Education.
“I’m always up for a challenge,” Brooks declares.
(Published June 2018)
Support the next generation of leaders Make a gift nowPost a Comment
Related Stories
-
- 10 Oct 2024
- Making A Difference
Cultivating Can-Do Attitudes
Re: Jen Wilfong (GMP 3) -
- 15 Jul 2024
- Making A Difference
A Sporting Chance
Re: Jorge Perez de Leza (MBA 1996) -
- 16 Nov 2023
- HBS Alumni News
Dean Datar Meets with Alumni in Boston
Re: John Williams (MBA 1978); Renee Fry (MBA 1999); Juan Enriquez (MBA 1986); Keon Holmes (MBA 2005); Christine Parker (AMP 199); Gautam Ramchandani (MBA 1977); Srikant M. Datar (George F. Baker Professor of Administration Dean of the Faculty) -
- 22 Jun 2023
- Making A Difference
Book Smart
Re: David Risher (MBA 1991)
Stories Featuring Heidi Brooks
-
- 01 Sep 2023
- HBS Alumni Bulletin
That Was Then, This Is Now
Re: Tony Deifell (MBA 2002); Heidi Brooks (MBA 2003); Peggy Yu (MBA 2007); Jon Swan (MBA 2009); Robyn Bolton (MBA 2005); Kareem Reda (MBA 2011); Nitin Nohria (George Fisher Baker Jr. Professor of Business Administration Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor); By: Photographed by Tony Deifell (MBA 2002); edited by Julia Hanna. Above: Heidi Brooks, photographed in 2003 and 2023. -
- 16 Nov 2017
- HBS Alumni News
The Business of Social Justice
Re: Heidi Brooks (MBA 2003); By: Jennifer Myers -
- 01 Jun 2003
- Alumni Stories
Portraits from the Class of 2003
Re: Heidi Brooks (MBA 2003)
