Alumni Profile: Matt Gould ’02

Managing Director of Administration, Teach for America

My official title doesn’t really explain what I do. I’ve worked at Teach for America since July 2005 and my job has grown and changed with the organization. In brief, I manage our real estate, which includes the national office in New York, plus 25 regional offices across the country (soon to be 30). In addition, I’m responsible for organizational purchasing, risk management and office management.

At Teach for America we don’t want to give off the impression that we’re anything other than this incredibly driven organization, where we’re focused on the bottom line, and we’re as relentless as any for-profit company will be. So if you look at the walls here and everything like that, you’re not going to see big pictures of Corps members. It’s actually somewhat sterile.

I really wasn’t thinking nonprofit at school. I worked in the for-profit world both before and after SOM, first with an Internet start-up and then with Ernst & Young. I wanted a change and I stumbled upon an opening at TFA on the Yale Alumni SOM job board. Teach for America is not your average nonprofit. They’re demanding and results-oriented, and more like a traditional for-profit firm. On the other hand, you can wear jeans to work and it’s not a big deal, and it’s a very cooperative atmosphere where people are working toward a common goal.

There are other big differences. The building that we’re in is nothing like you’d find in an investment bank. There aren’t leather chairs or a walnut table. In fact, just today I heard three different people complain that the toilets weren’t working. It can get frustrating because you want to make sure, first and foremost, that everybody has the materials and the resources that they need in order to succeed at their job. You want people to be able to walk into a space that they’re truly proud to work in. That’s not an easy thing to do when you don’t have enough money to go ahead and do that. We are a nonprofit, after all, and money is always tight. Donors want to ensure that the money they provide to TFA is earmarked to support the mission of the organization rather than to enhance the décor of the office.

The growth here has been nothing short of exponential. Every time we try to make a growth projection, it’s such an underestimate that it’s just ridiculous. Right now we’re at about 700 people for the organization and next year we’re looking at there being more than 900, with the chart continuing upwards through the end of the decade. We’re opening new offices (five this year in Kansas City, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Minneapolis, and Boston) and I’ve got to handle all that (find the office, negotiate the lease terms, manage the build-out, make it operational). People ask me why the company is taking off so much right now. I think a big reason is Wendy Kopp, the president. She is an extremely dynamic, bright woman who knows how to engender passion and get out there and get people excited about the organization. She was on Steven Colbert — the Colbert Report — six months ago. She did great, and there was an immediate spike in applications. How do you plan for something like that? It definitely keeps the job from getting boring.