Lindsey Kruse

Lindsay Kruse is the vice president of Understood’s Educator Program, where she leads the team responsible for ensuring that every child has a teacher who is prepared, confident, and able to help them thrive in school and beyond. She comes to this work after more than a decade of building programs to address and support educators in reaching full equity and opportunity in schools. Most recently, she served as the managing director of the Leverage Leadership Institute for the Relay Graduate School of Education, where she helped design and launch a program for top principals and superintendents across the country to diversify proof points and create a larger bench of leaders who can develop others to drive strong instruction.

Previously, Kruse designed and helped launch the National Principals Academy Fellowship for Relay. She also worked as an independent consultant for a variety of large urban districts, charter networks, and education organizations. She is a graduate of the Broad Residency in Urban Education, a two-year management development program that trains graduates of business, public policy, and law schools for leadership positions in school districts.

Kruse received her bachelor’s degree in Communication from Cornell University and an MBA from Columbia Business School with a concentration in social enterprise. As a parent of two children with learning and thinking differences and a leader of the Princeton Public Schools Special Education parent organization, she comes to this work with a strong belief in the value of partnership, advocacy, and support for families, educators, and students.