Erica Swallow is a status quo wrecker, currently helping reimagine America’s education system as VP of Product at Noble Impact, an Arkansas-based social enterprise that aims to provide every student with a relevant and purpose-driven education.

At Noble, Erica leads the charge of building products that empower students to pursue the unknown with confidence and purpose. She believes that understanding the needs of students, parents, teachers, and their communities is the only way to drive real change in schools.

Alongside her work in education, Erica is passionate about discovering and telling stories worth knowing through her writings in Forbes, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. A sucker for good ideas, she also makes it a point to share and consume good content and has spoken at SXSW, Web Summit, and WOMMA Summit, among other notable forums.

Erica previously served as the director of community for tech startup Contently, where she managed online and offline community building. She also previously managed the highly successful supported content program for tech news site Mashable and assisted in developing and implementing the social media marketing strategy for The New York Times. Beyond her roles at these organizations, Erica has worked on a number of high-energy projects with teams at TechStars, WeHostels, Saatchi & Saatchi, and New York University, and is the co-founder of peer-to-peer delivery app Deliverish.

Erica is a first-generation college student and holds an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a B.S. in marketing and international business from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. She believes that education is the key to opportunity.