Allison Salisbury
Senior Partner and Head of Innovation
Focus Areas
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Economic Mobility
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New Postsecondary + Workforce Models
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Philanthropy
Biography
Allison leads the Economic Mobility Practice at Entangled, which harnesses tools of innovation to help leaders—in education, workforce, and philanthropy—design and implement better education+work pathways. In that work, she draws on a wide range of experience, as an educator, administrator, and entrepreneur that has centered on designing new, more effective educational models. She believes deeply in giving learners the tools to design their own educational pathways, improve their economic trajectories, and ultimately live meaningful lives.
Allison’s recent work at Entangled includes leading the On-Ramps to Good Jobs research project, which resulted in a category-defining report on new employer-led training models. In early 2019, she launched the Opportunity Pathways Network, a national funder collaborative—including the Walton Family Foundation, Schmidt Futures, Strada Education Network and a dozen others—to support a shared investment strategy for economic mobility.
As Head of Innovation, she also supports new company creation in Entanged’s Venture Studio. Since joining in 2017, she has helped build two new companies: Pathstream, which prepares students for high-demand digital careers, and Adjacent, which partners with colleges to offer for-credit coding and skills bootcamps. She has served on the board of ReUp Education, an Entangled company, and regularly shares insights from her work in columns for EdSurge, Inside Higher Education, and Forbes.
Prior to Entangled, Allison built the higher education business at EdSurge, focused on transforming learning for low-income students through the use of technology, and led innovation for Davidson College from the President’s Office, where she built an entrepreneurship program and venture fund, and led Davidson’s first foray into MOOCs. Inspired by how education can be a tool for individual and community empowerment, she began her career as a social justice educator designing and teaching experiential learning programs for undergraduates in the U.S. South and rural Thailand.
Articles by Allison Salisbury
Amid College Success Push, The U.S. Overlooks The Fact That One In Four Students Are Parents
As Alternative Higher-Ed Pathways Take Off, We’re Still Forgetting Parent Learners
Building the on-ramps to the ‘Good Jobs Superhighway’
Can These New Colleges Help Solve Higher Education’s Equity Problem?
Check The Label: Degrees May Not Be Fit For Consumption
Community Colleges And Tech Companies Are Co-Branding Credentials To Solve The Skills Gap
Education And Career Are Disconnected By Design — Here Is A Roadmap To Fix It
Fit In, Stand Out, or Do Nothing
Here’s How Bloomberg Should Have Spent His $1.8B For Economic Mobility
How Apple, Salesforce and Other “Platform” Companies Can Help Close the Skills Gap
How Higher Ed Can Change Faster
Inside the Incubators: The Anatomy of a University Innovation Team
New Higher-Ed Business Models That Millions of Americans Need to Get Better Jobs
Staffing Company and Coding School Partner to Provide Education and a Job, All in One
Why Mega Universities Should Lead the Way on Quality Assurance