Goldman Sachs’ Cohen and Edgewood’s Farman-Farmaian Invest their Time in Preparing Every Student for the SAT and ACT

Oakland, Calif.―Nov. 13, 2018―

CollegeSpring, a leading national nonprofit providing SAT and ACT test preparation for students from low-income backgrounds, announced today that two new members will join its National Board. Stephanie Cohen and Alex Farman-Farmaian bring years of business and finance expertise to the board as CollegeSpring is poised to exponentially increase the scale of its program. Over the past 10 years, the organization has served 25,000 students and plans to serve another 25,000 by 2021.

Stephanie Cohen is Chief Strategy Officer at Goldman Sachs, where she is also an ex officio member of the Management Committee. Cohen has built an extraordinary career since she started as an analyst in 1999 after graduating summa cum laude from the University of Illinois. Named Managing Director in 2008 and Partner in 2014, she also has appeared on Fortune’s “40 under 40” list of the nation’s most successful young business leaders.

In addition to her finance credentials, Cohen brings years of experience in literacy, education, and gender equity to CollegeSpring’s board. At Goldman Sachs, she leads the “Launch With GS” initiative, which strives to narrow the gender investing gap through a $500 million commitment to invest in companies founded, led, or owned by women as well as women investment managers. She currently serves on the board of Quill.org, an online platform that helps low-income students with grammar, writing and proofreading, and she previously served on the National Board of Reading Partners, a nonprofit dedicated to helping children become lifelong readers. Cohen helped bring Reading Partners to New York in 2011, overseeing the organization’s rapid growth.

“I am thrilled to join CollegeSpring’s Board of Directors to make higher education accessible to more students through effective and scalable test preparation,” said Cohen. “Test-taking is a skill that, once mastered, can improve young people’s confidence and bring about life-changing opportunities.”

Alex Farman-Farmaian joins CollegeSpring’s National Board after four years of service as a founding member of the New York Regional Board. He is Partner, Vice Chairman, and Portfolio Manager at Edgewood, an asset management firm, a role he has held since 2006. During his time at Edgewood, he helped implement the current valuation approach of the Investment Committee. Previously, Farman-Farmaian spent 19 years at W.P. Stewart & Company, where he was a senior member of the U.S. and global equity research and portfolio management teams and was responsible for managing 20 percent of the firm’s overall assets.

Alex has a long history of civic engagement both in New York and internationally. From 2004 until 2006, he served as the president of the Princeton Club of New York, and he is currently an active member of the Economic Club of New York, a organization of prominent business leaders dedicated to tackling important economic, social and political questions. He also serves as a Trustee on the Board of the International Women’s Health Coalition, an organization that promotes gender equality and the health of women and girls throughout the world. During his time on CollegeSpring’s New York board, Farman-Farmaian was instrumental in building the program’s influence, supporting it in reaching over 3,000 students in New York City.

“I am honored to be joining a group of people dedicated to democratizing and broadening college access and choice for all young people, regardless of economic circumstance,” said Farman-Farmaian. “Hopefully the impact of CollegeSpring will magnify vastly over time to help improve many life trajectories and hence whole communities who will benefit from many more four-year college graduates.”

Cohen and Farman-Farmaian join CollegeSpring’s Board at a critical moment, as the organization has recently adopted a three-year strategic plan that will help it increase the quality of impact on students, focus on sustainability, and scale its program model to reach 50,000 students by 2021.

“We are thrilled to welcome Stephanie and Alex to our Board,” said Yoon Choi, CEO of CollegeSpring. “Not only do they bring invaluable expertise in business and strategy, but they both have a long track record of engaging in important social issues such as literacy and gender equality. We’re excited to work with them on deepening CollegeSpring’s impact on students and broadening our reach in the coming years.”

Since its founding in 2008, CollegeSpring has provided affordable and culturally relevant SAT and ACT test preparation to high schools that serve students who are historically underrepresented in higher education. The national nonprofit’s rigorous program of instructor training and support builds schools’ capacity to offer its proprietary test preparation curriculum during the school day to all students. CollegeSpring’s program helps teachers and administrators promote a school-wide college-going culture, encouraging students from low-income backgrounds to approach the test as an opportunity to demonstrate their achievement rather than as a barrier to college admission.

For more information, visit www.collegespring.org