Higher Ground Education CEO and leadership

Ray Girn received a BSc with honors from the University of Toronto, with a focus on philosophy and neuropsychology, as well an Association Montessori Internationale teaching diploma from the Montessori Institute of San Diego.

Prior to founding Higher Ground, Girn had a 13-year career with LePort Schools. Working at LePort’s K-8 lab school, he helped lead a team of educators in architecting LePort’s upper school curriculum and program. In 2010, he took over as CEO, expanded the team, and implemented an ambitious growth strategy. In five years, Girn and his team took the company from a small, local family business of three schools to the largest Montessori operator in the United States.

In March 2016, Girn founded Higher Ground Education with the vision of greatly accelerating the growth of Montessori education globally. Higher Ground aims to create a comprehensive international platform to deliver high-quality, high-fidelity Montessori programming everywhere, as well as to conduct the research and development necessary to extend Montessori principles to new, innovative models of secondary education.

Guy Barnett earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Toronto. From 2003 to 2010, he worked as a Senior Executive at Dominion Management, a property management and development firm where he was responsible for 25 properties located in Canada and the southeastern United States. In 2010, Barnett joined LePort Schools as Vice President of Development, where he was responsible for locating school acquisition targets and green-field school development opportunities. Under Barnett’s leadership, LePort established important partnerships with landlords, such as the Irvine Company in California, and developers, such as EPR Properties. In 2014, Barnett became LePort’s Chief Operating Officer, leading it in a transition from a local operator in Southern California to a national organization with a regional management structure, spanning over a dozen cities across the country. Barnett currently leads Higher Ground’s expansion and development efforts.

Rebecca Girn is an attorney with an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a law degree from UCLA, with dual specializations in business law and philosophy of law. She also holds an AMI Montessori teaching diploma from the Montessori Institute of San Diego, specializing in 0 to 3 year olds.

A member of the California State Bar, Girn began her career as an Associate in the employment law practice group at Dorsey & Whitney LLP.

In 2010, Girn joined LePort Schools as General Counsel & Vice President of Human Resources. Girn was the organization’s legal generalist and led the human resources department during a time of rapid expansion, with a hiring pace that included about 100 new positions a year.

In 2016, Girn became a founding member of Higher Ground, providing oversight and guidance for the organization with regards to the law, human resources, marketing, and infant and toddler pedagogy. She currently serves as the company’s legal generalist, managing negotiations, risks, and legal infrastructure. Girn is also a core contributor to many other Higher Ground projects, including marketing strategy, writing, and training and professional development.

Following the completion of her bachelor’s degree in English Education from California State University Long Beach, Maris Mendes spent six years at the Starbucks Coffee Company, where she was tasked with turning around a succession of underperforming stores from the perspective of efficiency, culture, and profitability.

In 2013, Mendes joined LePort Schools, where she was rapidly promoted, over a three-year period, from Campus Manager to Operations Manager to Director of Talent Management. Mendes developed a full range of expertise in leading a network of schools, from the nitty-gritty of school operations, to management of both campus and corporate teams, to high-level strategic work, particularly in the area of creating rapidly scalable Human Resources systems.

Her combination of ground-up operational experience and strategic judgment is now at work at Higher Ground, where Mendes oversees and coordinates all aspects of the school business, from opening, hiring and initializing systems to marketing and managing new campuses and maintaining the growth of existing ones.

Mitch Michulka is a licensed CPA with a bachelor’s degree in Finance and an MBA from the University of Texas. His experience uniquely provides a wealth of expertise at both ends of the spectrum with respect to financial scale, encompassing the unit economics of individual school locations combined with fortune 500 corporate financial management. At the corporate level, Michulka has over 15 years of increasing responsibility at several Fortune 500 companies including over ten years at Emerson Inc. with responsibility for a $30M business unit supplying a wide range of telecommunications products and services to global companies including AT&T, T-Mobile and Ericsson. At the unit economics level, Michulka has also built and eventually sold a CPA firm over a period of five years that provided consulting, valuation, accounting and tax services to hundreds of small businesses including private preschool operators. Michulka became passionate about Montessori education while consulting with the Montessori school attended by his two sons and eventually he served on its board of directors. During his time as the Director of Finance at LePort Schools, Michulka led major finance and investment projects supporting the rapid growth of LePort and developed unique expertise related to EB-5 and real estate financing for school projects.

Jane Erickson is a Chief Talent Officer at Higher Ground Education and is based in Lake Forest, California. She has worked as VP Academics at Leport Schools, Elementary and Middle School Teacher at Leport Schools, and Chief Investigator (Education Consultant) at HIT Entertainment. Jane studied at Yale University between 2003 and 2009 and University of Illinois between 1999 and 2003.

Steve Xu graduated from the Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, majoring in Finance and Accounting.

Xu brings more than 10 years of corporate advisory and capital raising experience to Higher Ground Education. He started his career as an Investment Banking Analyst at Bear Stearns in 2007 before joining The Balloch Group, a Beijing-based boutique advisory bank in 2008, where he worked closely with Chinese entrepreneurs and SMEs on capital raising advisory. In 2011, Xu joined UBS AG in Hong Kong, where he worked until May 2018, when he joined the team at Higher Ground.

During his time at UBS, Xu worked across a number functions in the Investment Banking Department including Mergers & Acquisition, Corporate Finance, and Financial Sponsors. Selected transactions in education include the privatization of Nord Anglia by Baring Private Equity, the US IPO of Rise Education, and the sale of Gymboree Play & Music to Zeavion. Before Xu left UBS, he was an Executive Director in the Financial Sponsors Group, responsible for the coverage and execution of financial sponsor (private equity) transactions in Asia.

Xu joined Higher Ground with a focus on business development to drive corporate strategy and lead Higher Ground’s initiatives in China.

Ray Girn received a BSc with honors from the University of Toronto, with a focus on philosophy and neuropsychology, as well an Association Montessori Internationale teaching diploma from the Montessori Institute of San Diego.

Prior to founding Higher Ground, Girn had a 13-year career with LePort Schools. Working at LePort’s K-8 lab school, he helped lead a team of educators in architecting LePort’s upper school curriculum and program. In 2010, he took over as CEO, expanded the team, and implemented an ambitious growth strategy. In five years, Girn and his team took the company from a small, local family business of three schools to the largest Montessori operator in the United States.

In March 2016, Girn founded Higher Ground Education with the vision of greatly accelerating the growth of Montessori education globally. Higher Ground aims to create a comprehensive international platform to deliver high-quality, high-fidelity Montessori programming everywhere, as well as to conduct the research and development necessary to extend Montessori principles to new, innovative models of secondary education.

Guy Barnett earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Toronto. From 2003 to 2010, he worked as a Senior Executive at Dominion Management, a property management and development firm where he was responsible for 25 properties located in Canada and the southeastern United States. In 2010, Barnett joined LePort Schools as Vice President of Development, where he was responsible for locating school acquisition targets and green-field school development opportunities. Under Barnett’s leadership, LePort established important partnerships with landlords, such as the Irvine Company in California, and developers, such as EPR Properties. In 2014, Barnett became LePort’s Chief Operating Officer, leading it in a transition from a local operator in Southern California to a national organization with a regional management structure, spanning over a dozen cities across the country. Barnett currently leads Higher Ground’s expansion and development efforts.

Rebecca Girn is an attorney with an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a law degree from UCLA, with dual specializations in business law and philosophy of law. She also holds an AMI Montessori teaching diploma from the Montessori Institute of San Diego, specializing in 0 to 3 year olds.

A member of the California State Bar, Girn began her career as an Associate in the employment law practice group at Dorsey & Whitney LLP.

In 2010, Girn joined LePort Schools as General Counsel & Vice President of Human Resources. Girn was the organization’s legal generalist and led the human resources department during a time of rapid expansion, with a hiring pace that included about 100 new positions a year.

In 2016, Girn became a founding member of Higher Ground, providing oversight and guidance for the organization with regards to the law, human resources, marketing, and infant and toddler pedagogy. She currently serves as the company’s legal generalist, managing negotiations, risks, and legal infrastructure. Girn is also a core contributor to many other Higher Ground projects, including marketing strategy, writing, and training and professional development.

Ray Girn received a BSc with honors from the University of Toronto, with a focus on philosophy and neuropsychology, as well an Association Montessori Internationale teaching diploma from the Montessori Institute of San Diego.

Prior to founding Higher Ground, Girn had a 13-year career with LePort Schools. Working at LePort’s K-8 lab school, he helped lead a team of educators in architecting LePort’s upper school curriculum and program. In 2010, he took over as CEO, expanded the team, and implemented an ambitious growth strategy. In five years, Girn and his team took the company from a small, local family business of three schools to the largest Montessori operator in the United States.

In March 2016, Girn founded Higher Ground Education with the vision of greatly accelerating the growth of Montessori education globally. Higher Ground aims to create a comprehensive international platform to deliver high-quality, high-fidelity Montessori programming everywhere, as well as to conduct the research and development necessary to extend Montessori principles to new, innovative models of secondary education.

Guy Barnett earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Toronto. From 2003 to 2010, he worked as a Senior Executive at Dominion Management, a property management and development firm where he was responsible for 25 properties located in Canada and the southeastern United States. In 2010, Barnett joined LePort Schools as Vice President of Development, where he was responsible for locating school acquisition targets and green-field school development opportunities. Under Barnett’s leadership, LePort established important partnerships with landlords, such as the Irvine Company in California, and developers, such as EPR Properties. In 2014, Barnett became LePort’s Chief Operating Officer, leading it in a transition from a local operator in Southern California to a national organization with a regional management structure, spanning over a dozen cities across the country. Barnett currently leads Higher Ground’s expansion and development efforts.

Following the completion of her bachelor’s degree in English Education from California State University Long Beach, Maris Mendes spent six years at the Starbucks Coffee Company, where she was tasked with turning around a succession of underperforming stores from the perspective of efficiency, culture, and profitability.

In 2013, Mendes joined LePort Schools, where she was rapidly promoted, over a three-year period, from Campus Manager to Operations Manager to Director of Talent Management. Mendes developed a full range of expertise in leading a network of schools, from the nitty-gritty of school operations, to management of both campus and corporate teams, to high-level strategic work, particularly in the area of creating rapidly scalable Human Resources systems.

Her combination of ground-up operational experience and strategic judgment is now at work at Higher Ground, where Mendes oversees and coordinates all aspects of the school business, from opening, hiring and initializing systems to marketing and managing new campuses and maintaining the growth of existing ones.

Jane Erickson is a Chief Talent Officer at Higher Ground Education and is based in Lake Forest, California. She has worked as VP Academics at Leport Schools, Elementary and Middle School Teacher at Leport Schools, and Chief Investigator (Education Consultant) at HIT Entertainment. Jane studied at Yale University between 2003 and 2009 and University of Illinois between 1999 and 2003.