Executive Leadership

Sheridan Doerr

Vice President of Marketing and Client Relations

Sheridan Doerr serves as Committee for Children’s vice president of marketing and client relations, overseeing strategies in marketing, customer care, and client retention. She has deep expertise in driving go-to-market planning and implementation, driving product growth, and developing strategic partnerships, specifically in the education space.  

Throughout her 20-year career, Sheridan has held a variety of executive leadership positions in curriculum publishing and distribution, assessment content creation and implementation, and edtech software solutions focused on digital security, safety, and well-being. Like many on our team, Sheridan began her career in the public school system, first as a teacher and later as a learning resource center director.  

Sheridan says her SEL superpower is social awareness, which she uses to understand and lead her internal teams and to connect with educators and administrators. Sheridan describes herself as an educator at heart and by trade and a problem-solver who seeks to learn and engage with people to help students have the best educational experience possible.  

Sheridan holds a master of education (MEd) in education leadership from Oklahoma State University and a bachelor of science (BS) in elementary education and mathematics from Northeastern State University. 

When not at work, Sheridan enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband and daughters. She is an avid hiker, sailor, and equestrian. Sheridan is also an enthusiastic sports fan with fierce loyalty to the Chicago Cubs and Texas Longhorns.  

Kelsie Longbrake

Vice President of Finance and Operations

Kelsie Longbrake has always been up for a challenge. She first joined Committee for Children in 1998 as part of the Finance Department, and since then has held over a dozen roles within the organization. In March 2022, she stepped into the role of interim chief operating officer, a position that utilized her background in finance, operations, and human resources to assist in innovative and transformative strategic planning.

As vice president of finance and operations, Kelsie is instrumental in strengthening human resources systems to better support employees. Kelsie says that if there’s one lesson she’s learned in more than 20 years at Committee for Children, it’s that an organization is strongest when it prioritizes employees and the unique values they bring to a company.

Kelsie believes it’s Committee for Children’s commitment to its employees—in addition to a powerful mission—that will expand the organization and pave the way toward achieving our North Star Goal. “A leader is only as good as their staff,” she says. “We’re prioritizing operations in a way we haven’t in the past, focusing on bringing in the right people to help us reach operational excellence. We want to achieve our strategic goals while creating better company culture in the process.”

Jessica Martin

Vice President of People

As a parent herself, Jessica Martin is motivated by Committee for Children’s mission: to foster the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning (SEL) and development. She has seen the positive effects SEL, and specifically the Second Step® family of programs, has had on her own child’s life and is proud to work for an organization where she can directly support the staff who are making the mission a reality.

As vice president of people, Jessica oversees all aspects of human resources (HR) and the employee lifecycle, including HR strategy, talent management, coaching, and training and development. Her role involves strategic thought leadership and operationalizing policy and processes. Jessica’s team supports Committee for Children’s most valuable asset, its people, to ensure a positive and meaningful experience where everyone can feel they belong.

Jessica has more than 20 years of experience in HR, and almost half of that time has been spent in education. She also brings experience from the software and healthcare industries. This variety of experience has given her a well-rounded view of what HR can do to align itself with the organization’s larger strategic priorities in order to successfully support it. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Washington and designation as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR).

Fitting for someone in a people-oriented role, Jessica calls relationship-building her social-emotional learning superpower. She finds the most rewarding part of her role is connecting with others and having the ability to influence change that positively impacts both employees and the organization as a whole.

LaShuna McBride

Chief of Staff

LaShuna McBride is a seasoned journalist and communications professional with more than 15 years of public relations and media experience. She has managed all aspects—from development to implementation—of strategy, public and media relations, community outreach, branding, and events.

As Committee for Children’s chief of staff, LaShuna’s main role is to manage the execution and implementation of strategic work, operational work, and organizational culture work in a way that’s centralized in order to drive efficiency and effectiveness across the organization. She is also responsible for overseeing internal and external communication efforts in support of extending the organization’s brand influence and thought leadership. She works to grow the organization’s advocacy communications and leads key initiatives, projects, and campaigns, including developing diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. LaShuna previously served as CFC’s vice president of public relations and communications.

Before joining CFC, LaShuna was director of communications for Seattle Reign FC, where she developed internal and external communication strategies to drive awareness and affinity for the National Women’s Soccer League startup. Before that, she served as primary spokesperson for Allstate Insurance’s Northwest region, with whom she earned a reputation as a steadfast, well-informed, articulate, and trusted source to key media, both locally and nationally. It was LaShuna’s calm, take-charge style that leadership relied on during crisis situations, where she guided highly visible executives to deliver on-point messaging. LaShuna’s ability to cultivate strong media relationships and execute successful creative campaigns has enabled her to secure coverage with top-tier media outlets, including Parents Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, BBC Sport, ESPN The Magazine, and USA Today, as well as local publications, such as the Seattle Times and Seattle Metropolitan Magazine. She is a longtime member of the Public Relations Society of America (Puget Sound Chapter) and the Association for Women in Communications (Seattle Chapter).

LaShuna sees her SEL superpower as her ability to make others feel seen and heard, both in her personal life and her professional life. “One of the most rewarding parts of my job is helping people across the organization not only tell their story but own their voice. As a mother, I’ve tried to lead by example—to be a woman who is a force in her own life—to instill that same sense of empowerment in my daughter.”

Jordan Posamentier

Vice President of Policy and Advocacy

Jordan Posamentier has made policy and advocacy the heart and soul of his work at Committee for Children, both as our first director of policy and advocacy and now as our vice president of policy and advocacy. Before joining Committee for Children, Jordan was a New York City public school teacher, the legislative counsel to the California Judges Association, the director of legislative analysis at StudentsFirst, and the deputy policy director at the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education. Jordan believes there’s an intense awareness across the country about how important social-emotional learning (SEL) is for our young people, and that policy helps turn that awareness into practice.

In his position as VP of policy and advocacy, Jordan works at all levels—local, state, federal, and international—to advance policy for equitable and effective SEL. He collaborates with many partners along the way, and throughout the pandemic, Jordan and his team have been committed to ushering forward federal relief legislation that prioritizes SEL. “Social-emotional learning is a fundamental aspect of a young person’s life experience and has been historically undertreated in policy,” he says. “I tend to be drawn to policy areas that are complex, impactful, and evolving. SEL fits all those and then some.”

Jordan earned his JD from the University of Houston, his MS in education from Queens College (CUNY), and his BA in human ecology from College of the Atlantic. He believes Committee for Children embodies a rare and virtuous feedback loop where research, policy, and practice all work together to improve one another to the betterment of the children we serve and hope to serve. “In this way, we’re kind of ‘soup to nuts’ when it comes to tackling our challenges,” Jordan says.

Jordan considers his SEL superpower to be perspective-taking, a skill that’s important in the work he does to help others see the value of SEL—and a skill he uses in his own life. “The folks who are in charge of jurisdictions around the country are quite different from one another,” Jordan says. “When advancing policy, it helps to remove ourselves from the Seattle bubble, look at what’s important to our partners, and learn how SEL shows up in their lives.”

Polly Stansell

Vice President of Product

As a teacher, Polly Stansell saw firsthand the benefits of kids feeling safe and developing positive relationships with peers and adults, and firmly believes social-emotional skills play a vital role in education.

Drawn to Committee for Children’s mission of advancing the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning (SEL) and to the opportunity to raise awareness of SEL, Polly joined the organization in 2018 as our first vice president of Product. She is responsible for product vision and strategy, ensuring the tools we develop are impactful and engaging for kids, educators, and families alike.

Polly earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Westminster College, and later, intrigued by how technology could be used in the classroom in the pursuit of learning, her master’s degree in educational technology at San Diego State University. For more than two decades she has worked to develop products that effectively utilize technology in the education space, most recently as senior vice president of strategy & product development at Voyager Sopris Learning and senior director of digital learning solutions at McGraw-Hill Education.

A member of numerous industry-related organizations, Polly has also served as a board member and on the strategic council for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and worked on the Corporate Advisory Council for Excellence in Education.

Polly sees her SEL superpower as her ability to make responsible decisions. “Building a successful product takes thoughtful consideration and being able to see the big picture,” she says. “And my family would agree that I have no problem making decisions, whether it’s picking a restaurant or planning a vacation.”

Lee Wilson

Chief Operating Officer

With more than 30 years of experience in education in a variety of executive leadership roles, Lee Wilson knows how to help organizations focus and grow. Most recently, he was a principal consultant at Headway Strategies advising more than 70 organizations, including Committee for Children, across the K–12 education industry on strategy and marketing programs. As Committee for Children’s new chief operating officer (COO), he’s excited to help the organization continue to grow as an international leader in social-emotional learning (SEL) while remaining true to its foundational mission of fostering the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning and development.

As COO, Lee’s role is to ensure Committee for Children’s strategy translates across the organization, from the boardroom to the classroom and everywhere in between. His experience in nearly every aspect of education equips him to understand the ins and outs of the entire organization, and his goal is to find the right people, processes, and systems to drive and support sustainable growth. Lee has built lasting relationships throughout the education world and will support Committee for Children in creating meaningful partnerships in the industry.

“I deeply respect the work Committee for Children does to support students and educators with core social-emotional skills while also shaping healthy school communities,” he says. “I look forward to helping the organization grow to the next level as SEL incorporates more technology and expands globally.”

Lee’s SEL superpower is his ability to stay organized while managing a wide variety of projects, relationships, and objectives, which will suit him well in his new role. Outside of the workplace, Lee’s hobbies are as broad as his experience in education. He enjoys playing banjo, golfing, skiing, drawing, photography, and all things sourdough.