Founder Alejandro Gibes de Gac will step away at year’s end. Current president Dr. Shelly Shires will lead Springboard’s next chapter.
Springboard Collaborative is pleased to share that Dr. Shelly Shires, our President, will become President and Chief Executive Officer in January 2027. She will succeed Founder & CEO Alejandro Gibes de Gac, who will hand off leadership at the end of 2026 after 15 years building Springboard from a 42-child pilot into a national nonprofit that has reached more than 118,000 children and nearly 18,000 educators across the country.
Under Gibes de Gac’s leadership, Springboard grew from a single summer program in Philadelphia into a presence in 230 cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. His work helped bring family-educator partnership from the edges of literacy instruction into the center of how schools think about accelerating learning — in reading and, most recently, in math.
In Springboard’s model, we partner with schools so that families and educators work as one team to support a child’s learning. Students receive small-group instruction from Springboard-trained teachers while their families attend workshops that send them home with concrete reading tasks to practice together that week. During Springboard’s three-to-five-week summer Family-Educator Learning Accelerator (FELA) program, students progress three months in reading level, independent research finds. Children progress five months in reading level in a seven-to-ten-week FELA program during the school year. The parent workshops at the core of the program draw 90 percent average attendance.
A Smooth Transition
The Springboard Board of Directors selected Shires due to her successful, two-decade record of impact growing education organizations.
Shelly is the leader that mission-driven education providers turn to when they scale.
Liz City, chair of Springboard's board of directors and a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
At top literacy providers Wall Street English and Pearson, Shires rebuilt curriculum, products, and operations for millions of students across more than 400 schools globally and 23 U.S. states.
Since joining Springboard three years ago, she has extended the FELA model through fifth grade, lowered the cost of reaching each family, and sharpened the organization’s growth strategy. “We are thrilled that Shelly will lead Springboard’s next chapter,” City said. The board will combine the CEO and President roles under Shires.
Said Gibes de Gac: “Having someone I believe in as deeply as Shelly lead Springboard is the best outcome I could hope for.”
Next Steps
Gibes de Gac will remain as CEO through the end of 2026 and work alongside Shires and Springboard’s board on the leadership transition. In January, Gibes de Gac will focus full-time on Paloma, a startup built around an app that helps families accelerate their children’s learning in 15 daily minutes. He co-founded the public benefit corporation three years ago and Springboard and Paloma have operated separately since, with Gibes de Gac serving as CEO of both.
“The great irony of my life is that my commitment to family engagement makes it difficult for me to engage with my own family as much as I’d like,” said Gibes de Gac. “I’ve been running two organizations for three years, and I have a two-year-old and a five-year-old at home. Of the startup, the mature organization, and my own kids, Springboard is the one that’s ready to thrive without me. That’s the highest compliment I can pay to what we built together.”
“We are deeply grateful to Alejandro,” said City, the Springboard chair. “He grew Springboard from an idea into an organization that has helped tens of thousands of children become stronger readers. As a working parent myself, I appreciate that there are only so many hours in a day, and that our own children deserve the time and care we wish for all children.”
“I will always be Springboard’s founder, and always be its champion,” Gibes de Gac said. “Until we live in a world where every parent is enabled to help their children thrive, you can count on me as a partner in this collective endeavor.”
Future Growth and Opportunity
Shires and Gibes de Gac both described Springboard as well positioned for future growth. More than nine out of 10 of Springboard’s partner districts return year after year, and 42 states have passed legislation targeting early literacy and family engagement — the work Springboard already does. “Districts are cutting everything that doesn’t work, and our partners keep coming back,” said Shires. “The demand for this is there, and state funding is moving toward our model.”