Jill Hawley

Jill Hawley is a Senior Program Officer on the K-12 team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Her current portfolio includes intermediaries and districts that are using networked improvement communities to improve on-track outcomes for Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty. Prior to joining the Foundation, Jill served as Associate Chief of Academics at Denver Public Schools (DPS) and as the Associate Commissioner of Achievement and Strategy at the Colorado Department of Education. Prior to these roles she worked at the New Teacher Project on educator effectiveness and AdvancED on school improvement and accreditation with schools across the country. While at the Colorado Department of Education, Jill led the implementation of Colorado’s new academic standards, aligned assessments, early literacy, and educator effectiveness initiatives. At DPS, she deepened her understanding of how these initiatives play out in a large, urban district. Through these experiences, she has learned a great deal about how to drive and sustain continuous improvement in schools. Jill enjoys spending time with her husband, Don, a high school social studies teacher, and her two children, Ben and Anne. Jill has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University.