Hanna Skandera

Hanna Skandera joined the Daniels Fund in December 2020. As the Chief Executive Officer, Hanna implements the Board’s strategic direction and leads all programs and operations of the Daniels Fund.

The Daniels Fund carries forward Bill Daniels’ legacy of compassion, integrity, and impact by providing grants to nonprofit organizations and college scholarships to deserving students in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. With more than $1.7 billion in assets, the Daniels Fund is one of the Rocky Mountain Region’s largest foundations.

Hanna has over two decades of executive leadership experience and a proven track record of impact in a variety of national and state-level private, public, and nonprofit organizations serving rural, suburban, and urban settings.

Recently, Hanna was CEO of Mile High Strategies serving as an education and employability entrepreneur, thought leader, senior advisor, and executive coach in leadership development and strategy, growing organizational impact, and transforming organizational culture. She also served as Editor-in-Chief of The Line, Founder of Pathway 2 Tomorrow, Chief in Residence with Chiefs for Change and Co-Founder of the Women in Leadership Initiative, Superintendent in Residence with the Broad Center, and the Visiting Professor of Education Policy and Impact at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. She was previously a Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Previously, she served as Secretary of Education for the State of New Mexico under Governor Susana Martinez, realizing the most significant gains for students in New Mexico’s recent history. In this role, she oversaw a budget of $2.7 billion and more than 300 employees. Hanna also served as Undersecretary for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Deputy Commissioner for Governor Jeb Bush, and Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor for U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. Hanna was also a Research Fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a Pahara-Aspen Institute fellow. In addition to the Daniels Fund, Hanna currently serves on the boards of Academic Partnerships and Newsela. Her past board positions include Vice Chair of the Colorado Community College Board, Code.org, Uncharted Learning, FullBloom, George W. Bush Center’s Education Advisory, Chiefs for Change, Ridge-Lane Limited Partners’ Board of State Education Chiefs, Harvard Kennedy School’s Mayoral Leadership in Education Network, and the Education Policy and Impact Initiative at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy.

Hanna graduated cum laude with a degree in business from Sonoma State University and graduated as Valedictorian from Pepperdine’s Graduate School of Public Policy.