Pranav Kothari is the Founder & CEO of Revolution Impact, LLC. Headquartered in Chicago, the firm focuses on helping social sector organizations improve their results through better business practices and organizational strategies. The firm’s projects include growth and scale strategy, performance measurement, and capacity-building for social sector organizations and leaders nationally. Current and past clients include operating nonprofits, foundations, corporate giving programs/ foundations, family offices, school districts, and higher education institutions.
Pranav is an Adjunct Lecturer of Social Impact at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, teaching both MBA and executive education courses on the education sector, education consulting, social sector performance measurement, continuous improvement, and board governance. He speaks nationally on measuring social impact, education data, education philanthropy, and nonprofit effectiveness.
Prior to founding Revolution Impact, Pranav served as Vice President, Strategy & Innovation for KnowledgeWorks, where he oversaw operational strategy for StriveTogether, EDWorks, and StrivePartnership. From 2013 – 2015, Pranav served as Senior Director, Innovation for StriveTogether where he led development of new strategies and partnerships to support cradle-to-career network members as well as financial and business planning for the growing, national organization.
Previously, Pranav co-founded and served as Managing Director of Mission Measurement. He advised leading funders, education organizations, corporations, and nonprofit organizations on performance measurement and program strategy. Prior to Mission Measurement, Pranav served as a Program Director at KnowledgeWorks focused on college access and success as well as growth initiatives and previously held market research and product development positions with Student Loan Funding and ACNielsen BASES.
He holds an A.B. in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA in Corporate Strategy and Organizational Behavior from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. In August 2019, Pranav was appointed to the Illinois Board of Higher Education and in October 2023 was appointed Chair by Governor JB Pritzker. Pranav is an Illinois Commissioner to the Midwestern Higher Education Compact and is an appointed board member of the State Universities Retirement System. Pranav previously served on the board of directors of the National College Attainment Network and MORTAR and is a member of the UChicago Consortium on School Research Steering Committee.
**This course was formerly known as KPPI-454-A**
The education sector is a critical component of our society, and significant energy has been directed at education reform in recent years. This is a course about the economic, social, historical and technological forces that shape the education sector. One goal of the course is to understand the implications for new value creation emerging from the confluence of these forces. Consequently, this course will be particularly helpful to students with interest in educational entrepreneurship. A second goal is to provide an introduction to the key issues facing the sector for students interested in engaging with education reform in a variety of ways - from volunteering in the field to running for an elected board membership of a school district.
