Meet Our Senior Leaders

Gretchen Schoenhaar is the Chief Executive Officer of Step Up For Students.

She was previously an executive at Barclays, a top global investment bank, where her executive roles included leading major technology integrations, spearheading regulatory compliance and fraud prevention efforts, and serving as Head of Payments.

In previous roles, Gretchen has championed global technology initiatives for senior management, led cybersecurity teams, and overseen major data migrations. Additionally, she has set up and run a strategic portfolio office for several financial institutions. She also started, ran and sold three self-financed technology companies.

Gretchen is a member of the inaugural graduating class of Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurial Studies. She is a mentor, speaker and advocate for expanding opportunity. She is the Founder and Lead of GLIC (Global Leadership and Inclusion Community), an all-volunteer mentoring network and talent incubator. At Barclays, she served as the co-chair of the Inspire Americas Employee Resource Group, which supported employees from underrepresented socioeconomic backgrounds.

Throughout her career, Gretchen has been effective in ambiguous white space, leading innovation initiatives and realizing untapped opportunities. She is experienced in crafting and implementing global strategy, leading complex transformations, and working with executive stakeholders on both business and technology teams. She believes in the power of collaboration to launch groundbreaking work. She loves reading, design thinking, a good challenge and an empty whiteboard.

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Doug Tuthill is the Chief Vision Officer and serves as a national thought leader in education choice policies. Doug previously served as President from 2008-2024, and under his leadership, Step Up grew from administering over 9,000 scholarships in 2007-08 to 400,000 in 2023-24.

A former public school teacher and teachers union president, Doug has spent his career promoting policies that provide education opportunities and equity to underserved communities and redefining how education is delivered in modern society. Doug has degrees from the University of Florida.

As Chief Information Officer, Frank Sikernitsky's responsibilities includes overseeing IT operations and strategy, aligning technology with our business goals, enhancing efficiency, driving innovation, and managing cybersecurity.

Over the past 20 years, he has successfully transformed technology and talent to meet new challenges and changing priorities across multiple industries. Frank holds a degree in political science and has authored several books, including a professional self-improvement series. Most recently, he co-authored a book about artificial intelligence and its relevance to brands and businesses.

A fun fact about Frank is that in college, he hosted a morning drive-time FM radio show.

Jill LaRose is the Chief Culture Officer. She is responsible for helping SUFS leaders operationalize our two core cultural values–everyone is an asset, and every event is an improvement opportunity–by promoting stronger cognitive and emotional management skills across the organization.

Jill is a certified Life Coach and for ten years was the founder and president of the Angel Society, a nonprofit, child welfare organization that provided shelter and support for girls who were wards of the state. Jill has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in education.

Joe Pfountz leads Step Up For Students’ financial and scholarship operations and its fundraising, human resource, purchasing, compliance and risk management functions and ensures the highest level of fiscal accountability and transparency at Step Up For Students and the programs it administers.

Prior to joining Step Up For Students, Joe spent 29 years in various leadership roles including Chairman of the Board, Managing Director, Chief Financial Officer and Director of Finance for not-for-profit and for-profit enterprises in the healthcare and manufacturing sectors. Joe began his career in the assurance group of KPMG as an auditor of manufacturing, healthcare, construction and banking companies. Joe received his bachelor’s degree from Christian Brothers College in Memphis, TN.

For over 20 years, Lesley has provided transformational, executive leadership to large scale nonprofits. At Step Up for Students, Lesley leads the teams that oversee programs, policy, marketing, communications, and customer service. Her experience in aligning boards, donors, employees, and communities to a mission has helped to build strong, outcome-based nonprofits. Additionally, her entrepreneurial vision has helped create social enterprises and diverse funding streams for multiple organizations. Lesley is a veteran in public affairs developing critical relationships with media and elected officials leading to successful policy results. Lesley earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Alabama and a Master of Arts in Public and Private Management from Birmingham Southern College. She is also a John Maxwell certified speaker, trainer, and coach.

Ruth serves as our Customer Experience ambassador, better connecting Step Up For Students with our families & providers, improving relations, and facilitating positive experiences. She leads the entire Customer Experience team and creates personalized and simple experiences for our families and providers. Ruth is a 17-year Customer Experience industry veteran who has partnered with large technology and education companies to improve the experiences provided to their internal employees & end-users by deploying technology and improving the customer service experiences in their contact centers. Ruth attended Wichita State University and finished her Bachelor of Science in Business Management with the University of Phoenix. Ruth was on the collegiate bowling team at Wichita State and won a National Championship in 2006. She is a resident of the great state of Florida with her husband and son.

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As the Chief Human Resources Officer, Samantha is responsible for developing and executing the human resources strategy to support the strategic and operational objectives, specifically in succession planning, talent acquisition, performance management, change management, training and development, HR regulatory compliance, and compensation and benefits. In addition, she provides strategic leadership by articulating the HR needs and plans to the Senior Leadership Team and the Board of Directors.

Samantha has over 18 years of HR experience with nonprofit and for-profit organizations, from workforces as small as 200 to as large as 5,000. She specializes in growing organizations looking to expand and enhance their human resources functions. She has previous work experience in the school choice industry and nonprofit youth services serving the entire U.S. Samantha holds a Bachelors degree in business administration and a Masters of business administration from Florida International University. She is also a Senior Certified Professional in Human Resources (SHRM-SCP) and holds a specialty credential in Total Rewards Management. She is also a member of SHRM’s exclusive Executive Network, reserved for CHROs from top U.S. organizations with the aim of shaping the HR landscape in the U.S. and globally. She was born and raised in Miami, Florida and currently resides in Davie, Florida with her husband, daughter and rescued dog.