Marlene Castro: “Education Strategy and Impact Leader”

Title: Planning and Impact Lead
Organization: Stanford | Accelerator for Learning
Age: 35

Marlene Castro is a strategy and operations leader who designs and scales learning-focused programs, systems, and partnerships that expand access and opportunity. A first-generation high school and college graduate from the Bay Area, her work is grounded in a core belief: meaningful change is built collectively through people, community, and sustained investment in learning.

Over the past decade, Marlene has worked across education, nonprofit, and technology sectors to translate ambitious ideas into operational systems that drive measurable impact. From classrooms in Oakland to global initiatives at Meta, she has led programs that support historically underrepresented communities by pairing equity-centered design with disciplined execution to reach learners, educators, and community leaders at scale.

Most recently, Marlene joined the Stanford Accelerator for Learning at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education as Planning & Impact Lead — a senior-level role where she serves as the connective tissue across the Accelerator’s research, operational, and advisory communities, translating strategy into execution and execution into measurable impact on behalf of the Executive Director and the organization’s mission.

Previously, over nearly six years at Meta, Marlene built the operational infrastructure behind large-scale programs, from K-12 computer science education to digital creator ecosystems, unifying education program portfolios across the company and developing the impact frameworks that brought coherence and accountability to global, vendor-driven operations.

Marlene’s nonprofit experience extends into designing and leading national programs at the intersection of education and technology, most recently as Vice President at The Policy Academies, where she built data systems and learning models supporting over 100 emerging policy fellows annually.

Marlene holds a BA in Political Science and Rhetoric from UC Berkeley, and a teaching credential and master’s degrees in Urban Education Policy and Public Administration from Loyola Marymount University. She is a Teach for America alum, a College Track graduate, a member of the Education Leaders of Color network, and a 2025–26 Fellow in the Aspiring Latino Leadership Fellowship with Latinos for Education.