Strengthening the Future of Education
changeforce is pleased to announce that Dawn Marie Bornheimer has joined as Senior Director, Education.
With more than 20 years of experience spanning K–12, higher education, schools of health professions, and mission-driven organizations, Dawn has spent her career helping education leaders strengthen partnerships, align strategy with execution, and build the systems that enable sustainable growth.
Her experience expands what changeforce can do for education organizations as they navigate evolving enrollment trends, financial pressures, workforce challenges, and growing demand for measurable outcomes, while keeping students at the center of every decision.
Meet Dawn
Dawn is a strategist and an operator. She works where the plan meets reality.
K-12 and higher education. Started in the public school classroom, then led system-level partnerships at national scale.
EdTech. Nearly a decade building simulation and digital health training partnerships. The last two years embedded inside education technology organizations, carrying strategy through to execution.
Healthcare. Partnered with schools of health professions on behalf of NYU Langone WISE Programs and Kognito, advancing evidence-based training for future practitioners.
AI readiness. Holds a human-centered AI leadership certification from MIT.
Voice in the field. Co-hosts the Leading With Purpose podcast. Published contributor on women in business leadership.
That she started in a classroom matters. The institutional constraints she now advises on are ones she has lived at ground level, not ones she read about in a diagnostic.
Her Role in Client Work
Dawn leads the growth of our education practice. She also carries senior presence inside client engagements, which is where it counts.
She has already begun joining a series of standing client meetings. Her first focus: retention, and the operating decisions that determine whether a change program holds after the plan is signed. Those decisions get made quickly, by people already at capacity. They are where most transformation quietly stalls.
That is the role. Crucial ally at critical junctures. Not a strategy handed over. An operator in the room.
Why This Matters
The pressure on institutions is specific, not abstract:
Technology outpacing governance. AI and instructional tools reach classrooms before policy catches up.
Enrollment and funding volatility. Hard decisions about how learning gets delivered, made under constraint.
Leadership churn. Continuity of change programs at risk.
Dawn has worked under these conditions before. Healthcare taught her how regulated, high-stakes institutions actually absorb change, and how often they do not. The constraints rhyme, and so do the failure modes.
We hired for both halves of her. Strategy without an operator produces a document. An operator without strategy produces motion. Institutions under this much pressure need the two in the same person, in the same room.
“Dawn brings a rare mix of education and managing change experience rolled into one. As she infuses into the work we deliver to education systems, schools, and teachers, we’ll all see a lift in the effectiveness of improving outcomes for students.”
George Swisher Co-Founder & CEO, changeforce
Looking Ahead
Dawn's arrival deepens what changeforce and our Education sector deliver: high-touch school support and instructional transformation, now with senior operators embedded directly in client work. More on this expanded practice in the months ahead.
Today, join us in welcoming Dawn to the team.
