Asha Gordon is a Senior Education Designer working on the OneTen initiative within the Lab’s Community College Growth Engine Fund. With 14+ years of experience in higher education and workforce development, Asha is skilled in developing strategic solutions, inspiring teams, and fostering individual development. She’s passionate about reminding others of their intrinsic worth and helping them develop their potential. Her endeavors have fostered her to focus on the individual holistically, and that pushes her to promote change.

Prior to joining the Lab, Asha served as a Director and then Chief Officer within Generation USA, leading the development and execution of bootcamp-style programs for the Verizon Skills Forward initiative. During that time, she oversaw four departments dedicated to learner success focused on instructional and program design, employer engagement, mentorship, career readiness, and early alert retention systems, resulting in a reduction in learner churn and improved learner retention. Asha’s higher education experience centers around enrollment management, where she found her calling in bridging the gap between strategy and implementation for people and processes.

Her strength lies in her ability to inspire and guide people to fill in the blanks with innovative solutions, creating buy-in and ensuring a unified sense of responsibility for producing quality work, even in environments with heavy focus on quantitative performance metrics. Asha is excited to join the Lab because she believes the future of education involves strategically learning from and leveraging the strengths of all stakeholders within the skills economy ecosystem, and she looks forward to contributing to and supporting this effort led by the Lab.

Outside of the Lab, Asha’s a lover of new experiences and can be found adventuring to new countries, participating in escape rooms, attending spoken word performances, and exploring new restaurants.