Jasmine Knowles is the Managing Director of the Black Educators Initiative at Urban Teachers, a national education nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a pipeline of culturally competent and highly-effective career teachers who accelerate student achievement and disrupt systems of racial and socioeconomic inequity. In her role, she leads a national initiative specifically designed to recruit, train, and retain Black educators, while securing funding and partnerships to ensure the longevity of this work. Jasmine began her career as a middle school teacher and has spent over a decade as a strategist in education organizations and the private sector. Throughout her career, she has focused on driving transformation through strategic planning, organizational effectiveness, designing and leading large-scale professional development, and managing high-impact teams.

Before joining Urban Teachers, Jasmine worked at Chicago Public Schools. In this role she led the full build, design, and relaunch of the talent management & development framework and evaluation process for central office staff; and drove the cultural and operational transformation to align the performance management process with talent pipelining, leadership development programs, and orgwide succession planning.

Earlier in her career, Jasmine worked as a management consultant at Accenture. She holds a BA in Urban Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, a Master’s in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Michigan- Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Jasmine is a member of the Chicago Foundation for Women’s Women of Color United Giving Council.