Aim High and Pillar Search & HR Consulting are proud to announce the appointment of Alia Peera to the position of Director of Partnerships. Alia joined the organization on July 17, 2023.
Alia will be a great addition to the team, advancing Aim High’s mission and vision forward with energy and passion. Alia’s background includes building deep relationships with partners and donors, working with educational partners and school districts, expanding nonprofits into new regions, and project management.
Most recently, Alia served as the Regional Partner for Northern California at Wildflower Foundation and previously as the Managing Director of System Partnerships at The Achievement Network. She is currently a member of the Nexus Fellowship Cohort with The Equity Lab.
Alia lives in the Bay Area and is a graduate of the University of Southern California. She will be based in the Aim High’s San Francisco office.
About Aim High: Aim High embraces the raw beauty of early adolescence by focusing on middle school (ages of 11 to 14), a vital stage of maturation. It is also critical to educational trajectories: improving the college and career readiness skills students possess by eighth grade has the largest impact on high school graduates’ ultimate level of college and career readiness – even more than any single high school-level enhancement. Summer programs are particularly effective in mitigating the inequity caused by systemic barriers in education. Despite its importance, just 1.1% of the 5.5 million middle school students from low-income communities nationwide have access to free summer enrichment programs. Aim High’s multi-year, five-week summer program combines pedagogical rigor with emotional depth to ignite the boundless potential within young people navigating systemic barriers. They envision every middle school student having access to joyful summer learning, inspired and innovative teachers, and the support they need to succeed in school and life. Aim High was founded on the belief that every student has the right to a quality education. In 1986 they launched at one site in San Francisco with just 50 students. Over the last 35 years, they have expanded across the Bay Area in every direction, as far as Napa and Tahoe-Truckee. Along the way, their transformative summer enrichment program has empowered thousands of middle schoolers from low-income neighborhoods, igniting their love of learning and yielding real results – 98% of Aim High alumni graduate and go on to college. Learn more at https://aimhigh.org.
About Pillar Search & HR Consulting: A woman-owned business based in Boston, Pillar Search & HR Consulting provides executive search/recruiting and human resources consulting expertise to nonprofit and mission-driven organizations, working with senior leaders and the boards of directors to hire and develop the very best talent across all functional areas of the organization. Pillar’s founder, Cindy Joyce, is a Certified Diversity Recruiter. For more information about Pillar, please visit www.pillarsearch.com.
