About Us
Impact(Ed) uses the power of media to transform education and help young people thrive.
Launched by Discovery (soon to be Warner Bros. Discovery) in 1997, Impact(Ed) International has opened new doors to education for over 2.6 million students in 16 countries, and tens of millions more through television and mass media initiatives around the world.
Our Approach
We embrace a proven, highly collaborative and holistic approach to improve student learning and life outcomes. A child’s ultimate success is built on what happens both inside and outside of the classroom. Public and private partnerships at all levels are a hallmark of our work from national and local ministries of education to school leaders and teachers.
Collaborate
at the national level with Ministries of Education and local communities to create long-term, sustainable change.
Train
teachers in student-centered learning, gender equity and social inclusion, 21st Century Skills, differentiated learning and the best techniques in literacy and mathematics.
Design
media solutions by, with, and for target audiences with precise messages for a defined purpose.
Deploy
EdTech with a clear purpose, relevant content, significant teacher training, and technology that can be sustained locally.
The Board
Carole Wainaina
Carole Wainaina served as Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management at the United Nations between 2014-2017. She is currently Chief Operating Officer for the Africa50 Infrastructure Fund. Ms. Wainaina brings a wealth of global experience at various senior leadership levels including human resources strategy, leadership development, change management and driving organizational transformation. She has over two decades of national and international, corporate and non-profit leadership experience, having served as the Chief Human Resources Officer and member of the Executive Committee at Royal Phillips in the Netherlands from 2011 to 2014.
Previous to that she worked at the Coca-Cola Company as Group Human Resources Director, Europe, and held various progressively responsible positions, also at the Coca-Cola Company based in Turkey, United States, United Kingdom and Kenya.
Ms. Wainaina also served as Chief of Staff to the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta and as President of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation. She started her career as a Management Consultant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers in Kenya and also served as the Special Assistant to the Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Born in Kenya in 1966, Ms. Wainaina has a Bachelor of Business from the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, majoring in Human Resources Management and Marketing.
William Asiko
William has over three decades of work experience at a leadership level across the public, private and non-profit sectors. His exposure includes stints in the Government of Kenya, The Coca-Cola Company, and the African Union. He currently serves as Vice President of the Africa Regional Office for The Rockefeller Foundation. William oversees all the Foundation’s operations and programs in the region including the Foundation’s work in ending energy poverty, health, and food, which are instrumental in bettering the lives of communities across Africa.
His extensive experience in multiple sectors gives him a unique ability to navigate different cultures, align incentives and draw on the strengths of various actors to solve large-scale development challenges. Today William is working to deploy philanthropic capital to attract private-sector commercial investment and align public-sector resources to help end energy poverty in Africa by 2030 and lift the incomes of millions of farmers across the continent. He is also working on using the Rockefeller Foundation’s convening power to bring together Governments, development partners, and the private sector to ensure equitable and efficient COVID-19 vaccine delivery in Africa at both the continental and national levels.
William is an avid advocate for efficient and sustainable economic development in Africa. He firmly believes that Africa will only truly transform when its growth story stops being Africa Rising and starts to be Africans Rising. He believes development is multifaceted and must take a multi-sectoral approach and strongly emphasize women and youth for it to be sustainable and impactful.
Douglas R Baker
Douglas R. Baker is Chief Financial Officer at Learning Care Group, a position he has held since September 2017.
As CFO, Baker leads Learning Care Group’s Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions and Real Estate functions in addition to its strategic growth initiatives as the company furthers its leadership role among childcare providers through educational excellence and outstanding customer service.
Baker’s career encompasses more than 25 years of leadership experience as a global senior finance and operating executive. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Discovery Networks International (DNI), a division of Discovery Communications. He joined Discovery Communications in 2005 as Senior Vice President and CFO for Discovery Commerce. He went on to serve as Senior Vice President and CFO for Emerging Networks, New Media and Business Development and as Executive Vice President and CFO for DNI before assuming his most recent role. Prior to that, Baker served in a variety of financial, operating and strategic leadership roles within Hallmark Cards and The Picture People, a strategic retail venture of Hallmark.
Baker earned an MBA in Operations Management from the University of Missouri – Kansas City and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Miami University (Ohio).
Willard Freeman
Willard O. Freeman has more than 25 years of experience in representing numerous developers, corporations, law firms and government agencies in complex real estate transactions. He successfully completed the leasing of 800 Ninth Street, SW to the General Services Administration; the acquisition, development and project management of the 550,000 square-foot Discovery Communications Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD; and the relocation of city offices to make way for development of the MCI Center in the East End of downtown Washington.
In addition, Willard has completed numerous transactions in major cities across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and southeast Asia. Willard has participated in various joint venture developments, including retail conversions to office space and assembling commercial property in enterprise zones.
Willard is also co-founder of Freeman Group, which now operates as the Washington, D.C. area office of Concordis Advisors. Willard’s managerial expertise includes serving as regional president for the Galbreath Company of Ohio, an organization absorbed into the company now operating as Jones Lang LaSalle. Throughout his career, Willard has been consistently recognized as one of the top ten brokers in the Washington, D.C. area.
Mark Hollinger
Mark Hollinger is a a veteran of over 35 years as an executive and lawyer in the media industry. He worked at Discovery Communications for 24 years in multiple business and legal roles, including serving as General Counsel, Chief Operating Officer and, for his last 5 years at the company, as President and CEO for Discovery Networks International (DNI). During his tenure, Hollinger oversaw the strategic development and daily operations of a division that distributed 44 entertainment brands in 45 languages, reaching more than 1.6 billion subscribers in 224 countries and territories worldwide. It was the first international pay television business to generate $1 billion of operating profits.
Before joining Discovery, Hollinger was a senior associate in the entertainment department of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City. He also lectured on entertainment law at Columbia Law School. Hollinger received his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School and holds a Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude)in history and political science from Colgate University.
He currently serves as a member of the board of Corus Entertainment, a Canadian media company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. He served for 3 years on the board of Discovery Education, a for-profit education business spun off from Discovery Communications. He is also engaged in film and television production through his company Pleasant Bay Pictures.
Gail Ifshin
Gail Ifshin knows Impact(Ed) quite well. The organization got its start when Gail was asked to begin exploring ways to leverage the media assets of Discovery Communications in support of education in the developing world. With the backing of Discovery’s leadership, that effort evolved into a global nonprofit organization that 15 years later, when Gail retired, was active in 16 countries, with a concentration in Africa. Fueled by partnerships in the public, nonprofit and private sectors, it developed a proven track record of self-sustaining, locally-anchored grassroots education and teacher training initiatives and high-impact video production that continues to this day.
Today Gail serves as president of Everybody Grows, an urban gardening nonprofit that inspires and equips individuals living in underserved urban areas to grow their own vegetables. She is also a beekeeper.
Gail has a Ph.D. in economics, and past professional activities include work at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in the International Finance Division, two years as a staff economist in the White House, at the Council of Economic Advisers, and service on the Advisory Committee on Emerging Democracies at the US Department of Agriculture.
Anthony V. Lupo
Anthony is the Chairman of ArentFox Schiff and practices primarily in the entertainment, fashion and technology industries. Anthony’s diverse client base includes WarnerBros. Discovery, Pixar, and Oprah Winfrey Network in the entertainment industry; Diane von Furstenberg, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, Fila, Lacoste, Diesel, and Christian Louboutin in the fashion industry; and Tesla, PlayStation, and LG in the technology space. For fashion and retail industry clients, Anthony often acts as their US general counsel. He hosts the number one fashion legal blog, Fashion Counsel, and Forbes recently recognized him as the ‘father of fashion law.’ For entertainment and technology industry companies, Anthony’s work focuses on intellectual property and advertising.
In addition to his work in the fashion industry, Anthony is considered a leader in the retail and e- commerce space. Anthony was named one of the top three retail and e-commerce lawyers in the United States by Law360. He has long been recognized as one of the premier intellectual property attorneys in the country. Chambers USA recognizes him as one of a few Tier 1 lawyers for intellectual property in Washington, DC, the Washington Business Journal regards him as the District’s number one IP attorney, and World Trademark Review 1000 noted Anthony as “top-tier counsel” in both the contentious and non-contentious work. The Washington Post reported that Anthony is making a “career out of breaking the mold of a typical DC regulatory lawyer” while maintaining a “bustling entertainment practice that could rival that of a California firm.”
Anthony is the Chairman of the firm and leads the Fashion & Retail group.
Aric Noboa
Aric Noboa serves as Co-CEO and Executive Producer of Impact(Ed) International. While overseeing finance, HR, and administration, Aric leads Impact(Ed)’s efforts to create measurable change through educational media, entertaining movies, television and radio programs – engaging tens of millions of people around education, life skills, gender equity, the environment, and public health. Aric has created award-winning documentaries, animated series, talk shows and feature films. Reaching a cumulative audience of over 800 million people, these productions have received industry honors and festival awards including the 2021 Peabody Nominee, Shaina, and 2022 Emmy Award-winning series My Better World.
Aric also established the Transformational Media for Social Impact Leadership Summit at St.George’s House Windsor Castle.
Tamela Noboa
Tamela Noboa serves as Co-CEO of Impact(Ed). Tamela drives Impact(Ed)’s strategic direction, leads innovative efforts to take successful initiatives to scale, and forges new partnerships to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal for universal quality education. She created a unique $64 million public/private partnership between Discovery Communications and the UK Department for International Development to improve learning outcomes for marginalized girls in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.
With over 20 years of international development experience, Tamela is focused on improving learning and life outcomes through locally led initiatives, public private partnerships, media, technology, teacher training and community engagement. She previously served on the board of directors for Pact International, the Millions Learning International Advisory Panel and the Varkey Global Girls’ Education Alliance.
Elisabeth Hess Rice, Ed.D (Lisa)
Elisabeth Rice is an Associate Professor of Special Education and Disability Studies at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at The George Washington University. Currently, Dr. Rice coordinates the department’s doctoral program and co-coordinates a graduate teacher education program focusing on empowering and serving neurodiverse learners. Her research interests and publications focus on girls with learning and behavioral challenges and effective school/university partnerships. A former classroom teacher, Dr. Rice specializes in preparing educators to effectively teach and advocate for all students- particularly for students with learning and behavioral challenges. Additionally, with the support of doctoral students in her department, Dr. Rice has led an effort to increase access and inclusion for all learners in higher education.
Christy Young
Where we are
Mass Media
Our TV series and films have aired in:
Algeria
Angola
Belgium
Botswana
Canada
Caribbean
Cameroon
Cote dI’voire
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Ethiopia
Ghana
Kenya
Liberia
Lesotho
Malawi
Mozambique
Madagascar
Nigeria
Namibia
Philippines
Rwanda
Swaziland
South Africa
Tanzania
US
UAE
UK and Ireland
Uganda
Zimbabwe
Zambia
Education and Community Projects
We have established projects in:
Angola
Brazil
Egypt
Ghana
Kenya
Mexico
Morocco
Namibia
Nigeria
Peru
Romania
South Africa
Tanzania
Uganda
Venezuela
Zimbabwe
Our Partners
We’re building interventions that change lives and entire communities.
Our partners, past and present, have made it possible.
Education Changes Everything:
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