Brandi B. Kenner

Founder and CEO of Choice-filled Lives Network

Brandi B. Kenner, Ph.D. is the founder and CEO of Choice-filled Lives Network, a social change capacity building organization whose mission is: 

to ensure that research-based best practices in leadership, organizational development, evaluation and learning science are equally distributed in the early childhood, K-12, public health and social service sectors, so that all children and families, particularly those who have experienced generational inequities and lack of access, can live choice-filled lives.

Choice-filled Lives Network’s efforts are grounded in 5 CORE tenets: Capacity Building and Cooperative Economics, Organizational Development, Research & Evaluation, and Educational Best Practices. She also serves as a Senior Consultant with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI).  In this role she collaborates with cross-functional teams to strategize and develop scalable solutions in the Education Reform, Measurement, and Cognitive & Developmental Science sectors through an equity lens. Her work is focused on developing research-to-practice pipelines that are anchored in human development and a re-definition of student success that takes into account all aspects of a child’s health, wellbeing and learning experiences.

Prior to joining launching Choice-filled Lives Network and consulting with CZI, Dr. Kenner served as Director of Research and Innovation for the Atlanta Speech School, as well as the Chief of Research, Innovation & Learning for the organization’s professional learning arm – The Rollins Center for Language & Literacy. In these roles, she was responsible for ensuring that each of the organization’s 4 schools, 5 clinics, and professional learning arm were adhering to, and implementing, best practices that were in alignment with current research in overall cognitive development, language and literacy development, teaching and learning, and the professional learning and research that supported these efforts. She was also responsible for overseeing all of the organization’s evaluation efforts, and shepherding organizational development and innovation through the leveraging and nurturing of various partnerships. 

Dr. Kenner holds expertise in cognitive development broadly, language and literacy ac-quisition, the intersection of social-emotional learning and literacy, organizational development, program evaluation, and experimental research and methodology. She has founded several schools and other educational programs, and provides consultation in many areas to start-ups, social enterprises and non-profits with social change-driven missions. Brandi holds a Ph.D. in Psychology: Cognition & Development from Emory University, a Master of Education in Behavior and Learning Disabilities (with a focus in reading disabilities) from Georgia State University, and a Bachelor's degree with foci in Elementary Education and Sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has dedicated her career to obliterating the many opportunity gaps that exist in our country.  Dr. Kenner has a large blended family that includes 3 children and 3 additional bonus children. They each inspire, and simultaneously are, her life’s work.