Watershed Advisors is an accelerator – not of ventures or organizations, but of big ideas – leveraging the unique, vast public sector leadership experience of its principals to bridge problematic gaps between aspiration, implementation, and scale in America’s education and workforce systems.
The Watershed team most recently spent nearly a decade leading Louisiana’s education system and developing a method for achieving scale, bringing new ideas to children and families from the inner cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge to the swamps and fields of the rural South.
Drawing on that experience, Watershed matches proven education and workforce ideas, investors seeking social impact, and bold governmental leaders across the country. Watershed then embeds teams within governmental agencies in its partner states and municipalities, coordinating multi-year efforts to implement, communicate, finance, and evaluate ideas in given cities, states, or regions.
Our Approach
Watershed Advisors’ method combines the discipline of portfolio managers, the sophistication of management consultancies, and the policy expertise of longstanding public sector leaders.
RESEARCH
Our team researches policies, systems, and initiatives around the world for potential scale and impact and on America’s youth, families, and adults.
MATCH
Our team matches high-potential ideas, visionary public sector leaders, and social impact investors or philanthropists to create multi-year plans for scale at the regional, state, or national levels.
MANAGE
Our team manages the communications, policymaking, piloting, analytics, software development, and public financing necessary to scale and sustain implementation for a period of up to three years.
EVALUATE
Our team evaluates the implementation, impact, and potential for further impact by gathering qualitative and quantitative data, calculating return on investment, developing case studies, and communicating findings.
The result is a conduit for change and dynamism from within the American education and workforce systems, a unique approach built for scale, meant to reach all communities in need.