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Frances Messano
Frances Messano
01:09

Frances Messano

NewSchools Venture Fund

Austin, TX USA

"It’s a journey and where you think you’re going is not necessarily where you end up."

Career Roadmap

Frances's work combines: Non-Profit Organizations, Education, and Helping People

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Day In The Life

CEO

I raise money to make early stage investments in people with promising ideas in K-12 education.

01:16

Day In The Life Of A Venture Philanthropy Nonprofit

My Day to Day

I spend a lot of time talking to funders about our organization to try and inspire them to give money to support our work. I also spend a lot of time setting the strategy and vision for the organization. I make sure we stay focused on what we do best. Essentially, I spend my time inspiring people to work with us, from recruiting staff members to recruiting people with ideas to join our portfolio.

Skills & Education

Advice for getting started

There are a lot of different ways to get into education. Try getting connected with organizations like Teach for America. I also suggest volunteering while in college—volunteering with education organizations or even tutoring younger students.

Here's the path I took:

  • High School

  • Bachelor's Degree

    Economics

    Harvard University

  • Graduate Degree

    Business Administration and Management

    Harvard Business School

Learn more about different paths to this career

Life & Career Milestones

My path in life took a while to figure out

  • 1.

    I went to Harvard University and studied economics, which was the closest major to business that the college offered.

  • 2.

    Every summer throughout college, I interned on Wall Street.

  • 3.

    After graduating, I accepted an analyst role with Morgan Stanley—however, after working there for three years, I realized that it wasn’t my passion and that I needed to do some more exploring.

  • 4.

    I decided to go to Harvard Business School.

  • 5.

    After grad school, I decided to go into consulting because I was very interested in marketing strategy.

  • 6.

    I started working on projects related to education and realized that I really loved education work, so I declared my focus in education.

  • 7.

    After working in education consulting for five years, I found a job with Teach For America.

  • 8.

    I then joined NewSchools Venture Fund as Chief of Staff and have since worked my way up to CEO.

Defining Moments

How I responded to discouragement

  • THE NOISE

    Messages from Myself:

    I'm going to get my degree, find a job, and work at that job for the rest of my career.

  • How I responded:

    When I was in high school, I felt so much pressure to have my future job all figured out. I had this idea that I was going to go to college, study business, land a job, and be there for 20 years. In reality, I learned that your career journey is actually a very winding road. You end up learning a lot about yourself and the different opportunities that are out there. As you do that, you need to be open to changing your mind and trying new things out.

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