Who We Are

Founder

Dr. Debbra Lindo's career spans four decades in the education sector and includes, public, private and non-profit industries. Her experiences as a public high school English and Social Studies teacher, school site principals in both urban and suburban settings, Area Executive Officer, Superintendent of Schools, Vice President of Educational Services for a start-up software company and CEO of a national non profit give her perspectives on what it takes for all students to achieve at high levels that few possess.  After graduating from Oakland High School, Debbra earned a BA in US History from Mills College. She continued her studies earning a MA degree and teaching credential from Stanford University and later a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from St. Mary’s College of California. During her time as high school principal in Oakland USD, she led a school transformation effort that doubled the number of the school’s graduates. As training division head for a construction management software company, she developed curriculum and training modules for clients and adult end users. As CEO of College Track, she scaled the organization nationally to New Orleans and San Francisco’s Bay View Hunter’s Point, making College Track the largest pre-college access programs in those cities. To improve quality and program consistency she documented all core service and processes for future site replications. Subsequently, Debbra led all secondary schools in Palo Alto USD and facilitated its A-G graduation policy campaign. Debbra is Superintendent, Emeritus of Emery USD.  Thereafter State receivership, she ensured the district’s financial position and fulfilled a ten year promise to the community of issuing bonds to build its K-12 Full Service Community School co-location project. Currently, Debbra serves on the boards of College Track, GO California and Partners in Schools Innovation. She continues to support the critical work of educational leaders by consulting with the XQ Institute, Performance Fact, Inc., and offering retreats at Villa Lindo, her private residence located in Escondido, CA. Debbra enjoys and now understands her husband’s obsession with Warrior basketball and relishes the time she spends with her sons and two grand daughters.

Board Member

Since 1992, Mutiu has worked with educational leaders at the school, district and state levels across the U.S.A. Prior to creating Performance Fact, Inc. in 1997, Mutiu worked for Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York for 14 years as a research scientist and in several management positions at Kodak headquarters. Upon leaving Kodak, he served as the Chief Operating Officer of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), based in Washington, DC, from 1992-1995.

Mutiu is a member of the Oxford International Roundtable on International Education Policy based at Oxford University in England. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering.

Board Member

Yvette graduated from the University of California-Riverside with a B.A. (Honours) degree. She received her Masters of Arts (M.A.) degree from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.  After graduating from Stanford, she worked as a high school teacher for a few years, before attending University of California – Los Angeles School of Law, where she received her J.D. law degree in 1983.  She served as an Immigration Law Counselor at the UCLA Office of International Students & Scholars.  In 1985, she was admitted to the California Bar.
Yvette has served as a board member and past president of the Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, and she is a board member of the Black Women Lawyers Foundation and the California Association of Black Lawyers. She also is a member of the American Bar Association, John M. Langston Bar Association and the National Bar Association.

Board Member

Dr. Grace Carroll received her B.A., M.A, Ph.D. in Sociology of Education and teaching credentials from Stanford University.  Her research focus on African American self-concept and racial perception culminated in her book, Environmental Stress and African Americans: The Other Side of the Moon, published in 1998. Dr. Carroll is currently CEO of Carroll Consulting that focuses on program design, implementation and process evaluation, and assessment/evaluation of community based projects. She has served as a consultant on ethnic data collection and reporting, evaluation, community development projects, and diversity with clients including: Oakland Unified School District, Kaiser Permanente, Harvard Business School, Urban Strategies Council, Oakland Housing Authority, State of California’s Department of Education, the University of California, the Office of the Currency Comptroller, Alameda County, JBS/Aguirre International and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).  At Aguirre, she served on projects for the Bureau of the Census, and the Department of Homeland Security. In these projects she conduced interviews and focus groups on racial identification; with Muslims across the United States documenting their post 9/11 experiences; and with targeted diverse populations regarding their immigration experiences. She served ten years as the Director for African American Student Development at the University of California, Berkeley, and for three years as the Associate Director of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR) at Howard University.  She also served on the research team that developed and conducted the qualitative data collection and analyses for the University of Michigan Law School’s defense of affirmative action policies. Dr. Carroll provided technical assistance and professional development in a comprehensive school reform effort to transform large traditional inner city middle and high schools into smaller learning communities.  In an effort to extend her work beyond the academic arena, the fall of 2006 she published a handbook based on her previous work focusing on race and stress entitled, Me and MEES:  Musings of a Mad Matriarch. Dr. Carroll had two children and nine grandchildren for whom she collaborates with her son and daughter to create children’s books with an emphasis on diversity and literacy.