In this edition of PurposePhil Pulse, Female Leaders in Education & Philanthropy, I had the pleasure of speaking with Kat Pattillo, organizer, writer, and Director of the Lighthouse Coalition at the Global Schools Forum. Kat has dedicated her career to amplifying stories of education reform from across the Global South and building connections between the leaders driving them.
At Lighthouse, she supports coalitions of government champions and technical advisors in Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, and India, helping shape immersive learning visits, tools for reform, and communities of practice. She also writes EdWell, a widely read newsletter that shares reform stories, jobs, and resources with more than 8,500 education leaders. Her upcoming book, The Systems Change Playbook, distills 55 strategies from pioneers transforming education systems in the world’s most complex contexts.
Kat’s path into education reform has been shaped by community organizing, teaching, and research, from co-founding the Metis Fellowship in Kenya to consulting for major philanthropic funders like Gates, Lemann, and Imaginable Futures. In our conversation, she reflects on the long arc of systems change, the mindset needed to work in true partnership with governments, and why joy, purpose, and human connection must stay at the heart of the work.
Thanks, dear Kat, for taking the time for this conversation. To start, can you share a bit more about how you came into the education space, and whether there was a person, moment, or challenge that shaped your thinking along the way?
Thanks so much for having me. The person who originally inspired me to care about education was my mother, Katy Barksdale. When I was in fifth grade, she ran for the Atlanta Public Schools board. She served for eight years, and I watched her navigate everything from town hall protests to school visits across a city filled with diversity, in race, income, and community voice.
At the time, I was in a very privileged private school. Seeing her out there in the real world, fighting for better schools, made me realize how critical public education is, especially for kids who don’t have access to the kind of privilege I had. Her work opened my eyes beyond the bubble.
My dad also influenced me. He worked more on the private sector side, impact investing, launching a microfinance bank and investing in low-fee private schools in India. So, from early on, I saw both worlds: the public systems change work and the private innovation and capital side.
I think that exposure helped me land somewhere in the middle. I believe we need both: the space to innovate and take risks, and the long-term, often messy, work of shifting systems.
Beyond that, I’ve always been fascinated by social change. I studied the civil rights movement, MLK, anti-apartheid struggles in South Africa, Gandhi’s independence movement in India. I interned with organizers. I worked on the Obama campaign. One summer, I was in India working with an organization called Video Volunteers, and I met an incredible woman, Rehana, who used to be a teacher but had become a grassroots organizer. I asked what she wanted to do next, and she said, “I want to train others to do what I do.”
That moment shifted something for me. I began to wonder: what if every child could learn these leadership and activism skills in school? What if school could be a place that nurtures changemakers? That’s when I truly committed to working in education.
I can relate to that, my own parents were teachers, and even though I never worked in the classroom, that exposure shaped me deeply.
Fast forward to today, you’ve clearly evolved in your path. Can you tell me what you’re focused on now? What are the main roles or initiatives you’re leading?
Yes, it’s been a real evolution. Right now, my main focus is launching and leading the Lighthouse Coalition, hosted by the Global Schools Forum and supported by the Gates Foundation. We’re a group of 11 organizations across India, South Africa, Kenya, and Brazil, testing how to support government champions in foundational learning.
We believe that while the education sector has a good grasp of “what works,” what’s often missing is the mindset, the belief that change is possible. So, we’re focused on the hearts-and-minds side of reform. How do we spark political will and build momentum among leaders inside government?
We’re piloting several things: immersive learning trips for government officials to places like Sobral in Brazil or Uttar Pradesh in India; cross-country communities of practice; and storytelling projects that capture powerful narratives of local reform. We’re trying to show that it's not just Finland or Singapore we should look to; there are leaders in Nigeria, Brazil, and Kenya doing remarkable things under incredibly tough circumstances.
Alongside Lighthouse, I also run Edwell, a newsletter I started five years ago to share tools, resources, and bright spots from across the sector. I’ve published guides on advocacy, job tools, fundraising strategies, things I saw my peers needed.
And I’m finishing a book I’ve been working on for four years called The Systems Change Playbook: 55 Moves to Change Education from Global South Pioneers. It’s a case-study-driven book, inspired by Teach Like a Champion, but for education reformers, featuring examples from leaders in Indonesia, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Brazil, and Pakistan.
That’s a great opportunity to move into the topic of systems change. You’re writing a whole book on this, but from what you’ve seen so far, what are the main barriers and the key approaches that seem to work?
I try not to dwell too much on the barriers, but of course, they’re real. I was just in Nigeria, visiting schools in informal settlements and vocational training programs. There are infrastructure challenges, electricity going out, lack of books and furniture, security concerns. Teachers are underpaid and overburdened. Many kids come to school hungry. It’s a tough context.
Zooming out, I’ve seen six key pathways to systems change:
- Coalition building: Like in Brazil, where the Lemann Foundation helped bring together diverse actors to pass national learning standards. It took over a decade and survived 14 education ministers and a presidential impeachment.
- Allyship across levels: In Kenya, Food for Education built champions at all levels - governors, parliamentarians, presidential candidates, to scale their school meals program.
- Activist pressure + partnership: In Pakistan, Baela Jamil’s team collected learning data and used it to pressure and then advise policymakers. They were outside agitators first, but became trusted partners.
- Political will: In Nigeria’s Kwara State, the second-poorest in the country, political leaders are prioritizing foundational learning with serious intent. That kind of leadership can’t be substituted.
- Philanthropic partnership: In India, Central Square Foundation has taken a long-haul approach, working with 13 state governments and achieving real gains in foundational learning outcomes.
- Innovation testing: Many governments adopt reforms originally tested by private or nonprofit actors. We need more support for innovation and for scaling what already works.
All of these require sustained effort, deep relationships, and a long-term view. Systems change isn't about flashy pilots, it's about staying with the work when it’s hard, unglamorous, and uncertain.
You’ve mentioned the importance of working with governments. What does successful partnership with government actually look like in education? What are the key ingredients to make it work?
It’s hard. That’s my honest answer. Working with governments requires patience, humility, and commitment over many years. It’s not for everyone.
With Lighthouse, we’ve learned that it can take a decade to see real change. Central Square Foundation’s impact came 13 years after it was founded. You need aligned nonprofit leaders, brave government insiders, and funders who are willing to back the slow, unpredictable path of systems change, not just fund pilots with quick metrics.
And because the work can be isolating, these leaders need community. That’s a core part of Lighthouse - connecting changemakers who are often the lone reformer inside a bureaucracy. They need encouragement, they need to see what’s possible elsewhere, and they need rest.
I think a lot about Manish Sisodia, the Delhi education minister who was jailed for 17 months on what many believe were politically motivated charges. He had done such powerful reform work, and still, that’s what he faced. The personal cost of systems change can be enormous. We have to surround these people with support.
Much of your earlier work was with innovators and entrepreneurs. How do you now view the role of small-scale innovations in the broader systems change story?
That’s been a shift for me. I used to believe that if we had a million flowers blooming, things would change. Now I see we also need people to spread and scale what already works.
We’ve over-emphasized innovation in our sector. We need more replication, more mergers, more adaptation. Too many nonprofits are doing similar things without collaborating or scaling together.
But I also deeply believe in proximate leadership. Many of the most effective government reforms I’ve seen have built on innovations from local actors, like The Citizens Foundation in Pakistan or SPARK Schools in South Africa or Bridge (now NewGlobe). Private schools and nonprofits often have the space to test new ideas that later inform public systems.
So yes, we need innovation. But we also need adoption, adaptation, and the courage to scale what works, even if it’s not the newest or flashiest idea.
Final question, and this one’s more personal. You’ve led across sectors and now work with policymakers and practitioners alike. How would you describe your leadership style? And how has being a woman shaped that journey?
I’d say I’m a community organizer at heart. I love building relationships, energizing people, and co-creating a vision. I often hear people say they leave meetings with me feeling excited and ready to act, and I take pride in that. I’m loud, passionate, and I bring positive energy, which I think is important in a sector often weighed down by crisis narratives.
I’m also a deep listener. So much of my work has come from conversations, interviews, and just walking alongside people to understand their realities.
But I’m also learning to balance that energy with humility. I can be too detail-oriented, too pushy. I’m working on stepping back, empowering others, and leading from behind, being the shepherd, not the driver.
As for being a woman, I’ve been lucky to have incredible female mentors, women who remind me that we’re human first, that we need to lead with compassion, and that relationships come before results.
Five years ago, I had a near-death experience. I was run over by a boat, had a skull fracture, a serious brain injury, almost lost my arm. I came very close to dying.
That changed everything. I now see leadership - and life - as a gift. We don’t know how long we have. So, I want to lead from a place of purpose, not panic. From vision, not crisis.
In the end, this work is about people. It’s about serving them, respecting them, and walking with them, no matter how hard the road.