Marco Petruzzi – President and Chief Executive Officer
Sandy Blazer – Chief Academic Officer
Cristina de Jesus – Chief Operating Officer
Sabrina Ayala – Chief Financial Officer
Dan Chang – Vice President of New School Development
Hoa Truong – Vice President of Operations
Alma V. Márquez – Vice President of External & Government Affairs
Marco Petruzzi – President and Chief Executive Officer
Marco Petruzzi is the Chief Executive Officer of Green Dot Public Schools. He originally joined Green Dot as President and Chief Operating Officer in January 2007, and was promoted to CEO in October 2008, succeeding Green Dot Founder Steve Barr, who remains Chairman of The Board. During Marco's tenure, Green Dot won Los Angeles School Board approval to rejuvenate Locke High School in Watts and began operating it in fall 2008, re-structuring it into eight smaller, college-prep schools. Green Dot also established itself as a leading agent of reform, creating a world-class school and instructional leadership model as well as an efficient central office to support the schools in many areas including accounting, human resources, knowledge management, information technology, and real estate development. The Locke Transformation Project is the realization of Marco's work on Green Dot's Board of Directors, where he served from 2002 until 2006, in which he led a pro bono Bain & Company consulting project to develop a model for the transformation of overcrowded, under-performing urban public schools.
Prior to joining Green Dot, Marco founded r3 school solutions, an organization that provided management and administrative services to charter management organizations. Prior to founding r3 school solutions, he was a Partner at Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm. Marco has fifteen years of consulting experience working with top management of major international groups in corporate and product-market strategy, channel management, pricing strategy, commercial organization, operations, R&D management and supply chain management assignments, in the USA, South America, and Europe. Prior to joining Bain & Company, Marco also worked at McKinsey & Co. and for Enichem Americas, a petrochemical trading company based in New York. Marco earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering at Columbia University, where he also earned an M.B.A. He has extensive international experience, having lived in six different countries, and is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. Marco, an active community member, is married and has two children, both attending public schools. He is also the Venice chapter president of the Los Angeles Parents Union.
Sandy Blazer – Chief Academic Officer
Dr. Sandy Blazer is the Chief Academic Officer of Green Dot Public Schools. Sandy has been an elementary, middle school and high school principal, and the Director of General Education and Special Education Services in the Long Beach Unified School District. All of the schools she has led have been recognized as California Distinguished Schools, where Sandy has implemented models of collaboration that directly impacted the achievement of all groups of students she served. She is a Senior Consultant with Focus on Results, a company dedicated to the improvement of public schools throughout the world. As Chief Academic Officer, she now is using her skills to impact all of the schools in the Green Dot system.
Cristina de Jesus – Chief Operating Officer
Cristina de Jesus is Green Dot's Chief Operating Officer. Her responsibilities include the management and operation of all Green Dot schools, including administrator and teacher training, supervision, and evaluation; human resources; and operations, including school services, knowledge management, and IT. She previously served for two years as Vice President of Curriculum and Instruction, and for four years as the founding Principal at Ànimo Inglewood Charter High School, Green Dot's second school. Prior to joining Green Dot, Cristina was an English and History teacher for seven years in the Santa Monica/Malibu School District.
Sabrina Ayala – Chief Financial Officer
Sabrina Ayala is the Chief Financial Officer of Green Dot Public Schools and is responsible for managing all financial aspects, including financial strategy, budgets, cash management, accounts receivables, accounts payable, facility financing and purchasing. She brings to Green Dot ten years of Wall Street experience. Prior to joining Green Dot in 2006, Sabrina was an Institutional Equity Trader with Merrill Lynch, a Valuation and Compensation Consultant with Stern Stewart & Co. and an Investment Banker with Kidder, Peabody & Co. All were based in New York City. Her areas of expertise include natural resources, cyclical chemical industries, consumer products, REITS and arbitrage. Sabrina, an Eli Lilly Scholar, received her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 2002 with majors in Finance and Entrepreneurship. Her Bachelor of Science degree in Finance, with minors in Accounting and Sports Management, is from Northern Illinois University, where she graduated with honors, cum laude and Outstanding Woman Graduate of the Year.
Dan Chang – Vice President of New School Development
Dan Chang is Green Dot's Vice President of New School Development, responsible for managing the founding and setup of the organization's new schools, including re-structuring Locke High School into ten new Green Dot schools. Prior to joining Green Dot, Dan held business development and product marketing positions at enterprise software companies Model N and Desktop.com. Before Model N and Desktop.com, he served as a financial analyst at Broadview International, a division of the investment bank Jefferies & Company focused on the IT, communications, healthcare technology and digital media industries. Dan holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Business Administration from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Hoa Truong – Vice President of Operations
Hoa Truong is the Vice President of Operations and is responsible for managing the Information Technology, Operations, and Knowledge Management departments for Green Dot. Hoa has a business background, having graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS degree in Business Administration. He began his career as a strategy and business consultant at Arthur Andersen, working with various Fortune 500 clients. One significant experience was consulting at the Los Angeles Unified School District for 18 months, where his interest in public education was piqued. After four years at Arthur Andersen, Hoa attended the UCLA Anderson School of Management and earned his MBA. Upon graduating, he worked in Strategic Marketing for an audio visual services firm in Long Beach, and also joined KIPP Los Angeles College Preparatory School as a Founding Board Member, where he currently serves as the school's Board Chair.
Alma V. Márquez – Vice President of External & Government Affairs
Alma Vivian Márquez is Vice President of External and Government Affairs for Green Dot where she is responsible for their public policy agenda, strategic partnerships and external and government affairs. The architect of the community engagement and parent organizing framework for small school reform led by Green Dot, Alma has played a pivotal role in the education reform movement in Los Angeles. Prior to joining Green Dot, Alma was a Program Officer at First 5 LA where she managed a portfolio of $150 million for early childhood education and grew to appreciate its impact in eliminating the achievement gap. Alma was also a consultant to the L.A. County Office of Education and L.A. County Children's Planning Council to create equitable pathways for educational excellence through diversity, strategic planning and community engagement. Alma is both a product and survivor of LAUSD schools. As a teen, she organized with ALYS: the African Latino Youth Summit to create safe and critical thinking spaces for youth of color. In 1992, she was appointed to the Warren Christopher Commission after the Los Angeles Civil Unrest. In 1995, President Clinton awarded her the White House Presidential Community Service Award. Among her awards, she is most proud of being honored by Mayor Tom Bradley, Assembly Majority Leader Marco A. Firebaugh as Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, being a national finalist for the Michael Schwerner Activist Award and recognized by the March of Dimes for her work to help save babies' lives. Alma is also a graduate of the Hispanas Organized for Political Equity (HOPE) Leadership Institute. Alma graduated from Occidental College with a bachelor's degree in English and Comparative Literary Studies and received the highly coveted HUD Community Builders Fellowship while pursuing her Master's degree in Urban Planning with a focus on Social Policy, Community and Economic Development from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).