Nina Rees Profile

Nina Rees
Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives
Knowledge Universe Education, LP 

Nina is responsible for advancing Knowledge Universe’s goals of providing the highest quality early-childhood education and after-school tutoring, while finding innovative ways to improve educational outcomes. 

Before joining Knowledge Universe, Nina worked for nearly 15 years in Washington, D.C., most recently as the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement at the United States Department of Education, overseeing the administration of 1,300 projects in the US.

Prior to joining the Education Department, Nina served as a domestic-policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. She also served as the Senior Education Analyst at the Heritage Foundation where she authored over two dozen policy briefs and served as the foundation's chief spokesperson on education. Nina has appeared on various news programmes, including CNN, C-Span and PBS's NewsHour, and her opinions have appeared in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. 

Rees currently serves on the board of directors of the Education Industry Association and the board of advisors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance. Nina holds a B.A. in Psychology from Virginia Tech and a master’s in International Transactions from George Mason University. She is fluent in French and Farsi.