Tess Posner

Tess is a social entrepreneur who has spent her career working to increase equity in the education system and economy. She currently leads TechHire at Opportunity@Work, a national initiative connecting overlooked and underrepresented Americans to tech jobs currently in 72 cities, states and rural areas around the country. Prior to joining Opportunity@Work, Tess was Managing Director of Samaschool, a social enterprise part of the SamaGroup that equips low-income people to find work in the digital economy. Tess grew the program from a pilot in San Francisco in 2013 to international adoption, now with over a dozen diverse locations from New York City to rural Arkansas and in East Africa and launched an online training platform which she grew to serving 15,000 students in 70+ countries. Samaschool’s approach to giving low-income populations 21st century skills to tap into the digital economy led it to be named one of the “13 most innovative schools in the world” by Business Insider, featured in TechCrunch, FastCompany and receive funding from organizations such as the Tipping Point Community, JPMorgan Chase, the California Endowment and the Robin Hood Foundation. Tess is an Institute for the Future Fellow and holds a master's degree from Columbia University School in Social Enterprise Administration and a bachelor’s in liberal arts from St. John’s College.