Gautam Thapar

Gautam was most recently the founder and Executive Director of Invictus Academy of Richmond, a high performing, independent charter middle and high school in the Richmond area of the East Bay in California. Gautam participated in the selective fellowship program for the charter school incubator program Building Excellent Schools (now Build. Excel. Sustain), during which he traveled the country nationwide to study 50+ high performing schools (this was also how he and TyAnthony first met). As a solo founder, he engaged in community organizing, developed a research-backed charter petition, and navigated local school board politics, earning a rare staff recommendation for approval from West Contra Costa Unified School District, and eventually a unanimous 5-0 approval for authorization of Invictus from the Contra Costa County Office of Education. At Invictus, Gautam grew the school and organization from 0 to 30+ staff and 0 to 300+ students over 4 years of operations. Invictus was unique in serving an especially high needs student community, including the highest special education population of any charter school in the surrounding district. When Gautam transitioned leadership of the organization to a trusted successor, Invictus was the highest performing charter school in its district on state exams, had over $1 million in reserves (over 25% of forward expenses on an annual budget of $3.6 million), and had secured a 3-year lease on its facilities. Student, parent, and staff survey data consistently and overwhelmingly reflected a highly positive organizational climate. Prior to founding Invictus, Gautam was a Teach For America corps member and taught US History and AP U.S. History for 4 years. Gautam led a doubling in student proficiency on state exams (40% proficiency to 80%) and a nearly 10x increase in the percentage of students passing the annual AP Exam (7% to 64%). He earned his MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in 2016, and graduated with honors from Stanford University in 2010.