Biography
Dr. Rafal-Baer is the co-founder and CEO of ILO Group, a women-founded, leadership-focused education policy and strategy firm, and founder of Women Leading Ed, a national network of women education leaders. She is also a co-founder and partner at The Forum for Educational Leadership. She began her career as a special education teacher in the Bronx and is now a top education advisor leading high-performance organizations nationwide, having directly coached more than 200 leaders into superintendent and state commissioner roles. She frequently speaks and writes on the need to advance more women leaders in senior roles, has testified before Congress, and is a frequent national voice on education policy, most recently on artificial intelligence in education.
Previously, Dr. Rafal-Baer served as Chief Operating Officer at Chiefs for Change, building the organization from a start-up to a high-impact nonprofit, raising over $110 million in philanthropic funds and developing initiatives including the Future Chiefs and Women in Leadership programs. She earlier served as Assistant Commissioner of the New York State Education Department, overseeing more than $150 million in federal funds for teacher and leader initiatives.
She sits on the national board for the Association of Marshall Scholars, the Education Week Board of Directors, and the advisory committee for Harvard’s Center for Education Policy and Research. In 2020, she was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education to a four-year term on the National Assessment Governing Board and re-appointed to a second term in 2024. Her appointments span both Democratic and Republican administrations. In 2022, she was named a Pahara Fellow.
Julia graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a B.A. in Psychology, holds a dual M.S. from CUNY: Lehman College, and holds a Master of Philosophy in Education Research and a Ph.D. in Comparative Education Policy from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Marshall Scholar.
