Christi has worked in education policy for 25 years, having served in leadership positions at the Texas Education Agency (TEA), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and several state-level policy organizations. Christi’s work has focused on providing strategic support and management for groups such as the Data Quality Campaign, Empower Schools, Educate Texas, and the Texas District Charter Alliance. Additionally, she has contributed to the development of alternative governance strategies in a variety of educational contexts. Having served as general counsel to the Office of Charter Schools at the Texas Education Agency, she brings a unique perspective on the value of independent governance in public education.
Since this work, she has served in a variety of non-profit leadership roles and has held high-level strategy development roles such as senior advisor to the Texas Commissioner of Education and lead senior program officer for U.S. programs at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Christi has an extensive amount of experience with stakeholder engagement and improving the organizational capacity of organizations. Christi earned a B.A. and M.A. in political science from University of Houston and earned a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.