Saga Education, the nation’s most trusted nonprofit leader for effective personalized tutoring, today announced that Yessica Cancel has been appointed as the organization’s next President, reporting to CEO Alan Safran.
“I am extremely honored to be joining Saga and look forward to collaborating with our teams and enabling the execution of our strategic plan as we seek to not only help close the educational gap for our students, but also empower them to reach their full potential by building confidence and connections with caring adults,” said Cancel.
Cancel takes on the new role after an impressive 20 years of leadership experience in both nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Her career has been marked by a commitment to bringing organizations to scale and effecting positive change. Her professional journey began as a dedicated teacher and has most recently served as the Chief People Officer for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Yessica also spent 11 years of her career in senior leadership roles at the Pace Center for Girls in Florida. Pace’s team of counselors and educators provide free year-round middle and high school academic services, counseling, life skills training, and career preparation, developing individualized approaches tailored to each girl’s unique strengths, life experiences and needs.
Since its inception, Saga has leveraged both the power of human capital and technology to create an evidence-based, relationship-driven approach for accelerating student outcomes. Through high-impact tutoring, Saga creates more equitable learning experiences for students. This method has been highly successful for addressing learning loss, building positive learning habits, and increasing student achievement.
“We are thrilled to welcome Yessica Cancel as the President of Saga. Her wealth of experience and commitment to our mission will be instrumental in propelling us towards our goals. I am especially looking forward to her leadership in strengthening the Saga organization internally, as I focus increasingly on external partnerships,” said Alan Safran, CEO and co-founder of Saga Education.
About Saga Education
Saga Education is an evidence-based, personalized, in-school-day tutoring intervention designed to help schools personalize education for students, to support them in generating confidence and academic strength to graduate high school and pursue their dreams. In 2020, the organization was named to Fast Company’s prestigious list of the World’s Most Innovative Educational Companies, recognized for its evidence-based, scalable tutoring model that serves students in high-need schools. For more information, visit saga.org.