Leadership

Suhail Farooqui is widely recognized as a visionary helping America’s public schools become more relevant and effective at their core mission. He is among the leading voices convincing educational leaders that the traditional ways of building engagement with parents, teachers, staff and students are no longer effective, as we face the confluence of three major realities — extremely high expectations of public education, serious reductions in educational funding and historically low levels of trust accelerated by the advent of social media. Suhail’s vision of what constitutes an adequate response has been incorporated into the training of new superintendents in several states.

Suhail presents regularly at conferences and seminars nationwide, including those sponsored by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), National School Boards Association (NSBA), National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA), National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE), the Urban Superintendents’ Association of America (USAA), and Center for Quality Leadership (CQL). His essays on key public education issues have been published in journals such as AASA’s School Administrator, TASA’s INSIGHT and NYSCOSS’ CouncilGram.

Previously, Suhail was a senior manager at MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), where he led the development of innovative solutions for real-time alerts to solve complex decision-support system problems. He started his career at Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB), where he worked as a research scientist exploring the application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and micro-gravity measurements to the discovery and development of oil wells.

Suhail holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and spent three years as a graduate student in Electrical Engineering at Yale University.

Hamid Farooqui is responsible for product and technology strategy and product delivery, focusing on bringing cutting-edge technology to solve the most pressing issues currently facing public education. He has led a team of software architects and engineers to design K12 Insight’s leading research and outreach platform.

An early member of the technology team that built e-Travel, the Travel Software division of Oracle Corporation, Hamid rose through successive promotions to serve as Director of Engineering. After e-Travel was acquired by Amadeus, he led the integration of two complex systems in both the U.S. and Europe. Hamid has been profiled by leading publications as a rising CTO in the technology and K12 industries.

Hamid earned an engineering degree from Bombay University in India and holds a Masters in Computer Science from SUNY, Binghamton, New York.

Jesse Leib’s responsibilities include sales, business development and promoting the K12 Insight brand.  

Previously, Jesse was Regional Director at Blackboard Connect, Inc. (formally Blackboard, Inc BBBB), where he was influential in driving adoption of ConnectED throughout the northeast.

Jesse started his career at F2F Group, Inc., a sales outsourcing and business development firm specializing in web-based technology sales and development.

Daniel R. Carter manages the company’s client services division, facilitating stakeholder engagement strategies. He is also responsible for fostering new relationships with school districts, along with state and organization leaders, while promoting the K12 Insight brand. Daniel regularly presents to district leadership teams and school boards nationwide.

Daniel’s extensive experience in operational management and sales includes more than six years in the education vertical in a business development capacity, focusing on both K12 and higher education. Previously, he spent more than 12 years as a manager and broker within the risk and insurance industry, working closely with Fortune 500 clients.

Daniel is a graduate of Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts, where he received degrees in both Sociology and Political Science. He has also completed coursework in law at Boston’s Northeastern University.

Pamela Mantis is responsible for managing all the company’s finances, event planning and HR functions.

Previously, Pamela served as Vice President of Operations at JC Watts Companies, where she was directly responsible for managing publicity and press for J.C. Watts, Jr., as well as developing strategic communications plans for a variety of corporate clients. She has also served as part of the Washington D.C. press corps, where she covered daily briefings at The White House, Department of State, Capitol Hill, Pentagon and Department of Education, where she reported on education policies.

Pamela holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Stephan Knobloch is responsible for leading K12 Insight’s research services to engage district stakeholders in meaningful conversations with the goal of improving public education.

Stephan has more than two decades of combined experience as a public school teacher and district administrator. Most recently, Stephan served as Director of Research for Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools, a rapidly growing school system with more than 66,000 students in 80-plus schools. Stephan was responsible for coordinating program evaluations, overseeing all research studies and surveys, developing school improvement efforts and leading a data-driven culture of decision-making. Previously, Stephan served as Senior Director of PBS TeacherLine, an online professional development service for teachers funded by the U.S. Department of Education. He has also worked as a national consultant in the areas of project-based learning, instructional design, assessment and technology integration.

Stephan holds a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Virginia.

Rochelle L Levy works closely with school district leadership crafting pre- and post-survey communications — including press releases, letters to stakeholders and newspaper op-eds— in order to set the proper community expectations and explain survey findings in understandable language, thus building and nurturing stakeholder trust and engagement. She also oversees all sales and marketing messaging to ensure clarity and consistency.

Rochelle’s public school experience includes tutoring high school students as part of the AVID program, teaching Junior Achievement curricula to fourth-graders and instructing third graders in poetry writing. Rochelle also worked as the Editorial Director at American Film Institute, as a radio columnist/music reporter for Billboard magazine, and in movie and mini-series development at NBC. She has been published in The Washington Post, Salon, Glamour, The Los Angeles Times Magazine and the anthology Deliver Me: True Confessions of Motherhood, among many other publications.

Rochelle holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland.