Ashley Clark is a Senior Consultant at Education First, where she supports education leaders with a focus on the educator pipeline, organizational design and strategic school staffing. Ashley brings deep expertise in building equitable, high-performing teams and believes that people-centered strategies are essential for driving long-term, meaningful change across the education sector.
Prior to stepping into the Senior Consultant role, Ashley served as Education First’s Director of Talent Management, where she led the firm’s talent strategy, including talent acquisition, optimized internal operations and managed performance management initiatives. Before joining Education First, Ashley led the talent function at a rapidly growing, Series A–funded ed-tech startup, designing scalable and equitable recruiting and people operations. She also spent several years in the education nonprofit sector leading high-volume educator workforce recruitment with a focus on increasing the racial diversity of the educator workforce in Colorado and Illinois. During this time, she established local and national partnerships to strengthen long-term educator pipelines and reduce teacher shortages using strategic staffing models and alternative licensure pathways, such as teacher residency programs.
Ashley grew up in the Chicago suburbs and earned her Bachelor of Arts from Hampton University, a Master of Arts from Loyola University Chicago and a Master of Science from Colorado State University–Global Campus. She also holds a SHRM-CP and Human Resource Management Certificate from Villanova University. Outside of work, she enjoys tap dancing, traveling, collecting vinyl records and being a dog mom to Enzo and Riley.
