Staff

Photo: Breakthrough Collaborative
National Leadership
Vince Marigna, Chief Executive Officer
Vincent Marigna is Chief Executive Officer at Breakthrough Collaborative, a national network creating empowering educational experiences for traditionally underrepresented students on their path to college and the largest pre-professional teacher training program in the country. Prior to Breakthrough, Marigna served as Executive Director of Braven Newark, a career and leadership development accelerator program run out of Rutgers Newark. He also served on the New Jersey Governor’s task force focused on student success in college. Marigna spent over a decade in leadership at KIPP New Jersey, where he served as the Chief Schools Officer/Chief Academic Officer and later as the Chief People Officer.
Marigna began his career as a high school English teacher and Teach For America corps member in New Jersey, going on to join the local Teach For America staff in Newark where he coached and supported incoming teachers in that program. As a first-generation college graduate himself, Marigna has committed his career to organizations expanding educational opportunities for students from backgrounds that are historically marginalized and underserved by the education system.
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Rachel Martinez de Canada, Chief Culture & Operating Officer

Alex Serna, Chief Program Officer
Today, he is the Chief Program Officer at the Breakthrough Collaborative. He previously served for almost eight years as the Executive Director and before that Program Director of Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano. There he led the program’s expansion into college, tripled the number of students being served, and grew their endowment to over 1 million dollars.
He supports national initiatives in education, having served on the Millennial Commission on Education as a Senior Fellow, where he helped develop key policy recommendations in the advancement of education reform. He is a Ricardo Salinas Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a 2017 Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) Emerging Leader.
Alex volunteers his time on advisory boards such as the University of California, Irvine’s School of Social Ecology Field Study Program, nonprofits like the Wellness and Prevention Center, and the Hispanic Education Endowment Fund.
He also serves as an expert on college access and educational policy. He has been featured in The New York Times, EdSurge, Washington Post, The Hill, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, The Hechinger Report, and NACAC’s Journal of College Admissions.
He believes passionately in the power of education and its potential to change lives, just like it transformed his. He lives in San Diego with his high school sweetheart and four daughters.

National Staff
Jonathan Appleby, National Director of Recruitment
Mara Bernstein, Executive Administrator
Kyle Bobrick, National Communications Manager
Sara Camacho, Success Manager
Michael Chong, Business Operations Manager
Jee Deogracias, Senior Director of Research & Evaluation
Christina Donahue, Culture & Collaboration Manager
Phyllis Elick, Senior Program Director

Linda Francis, Manager of Learning and Instruction

Samantha Geary, College Access and Success Manager

Tieler Giles, Director of Marketing & Communications
Natalie Jacobs Hall, Recruitment and Residency Manager

Ambler Mauger Ochstein, National Director of Institutional Partnerships
Kylie Ortity, Development Operations Manager
Tori Perrakis, Salesforce Administrator

Kyla Phillips, Talent Manager

Katie Post, National Director of Philanthropy
Katie holds a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is the proud mom/step-mom to five children with her husband.
Jenny Song, Manager of Research & Evaluation

Meredith Zackey, Senior Director of Program Success
