Amanda Cordray

Ms. Cordray is currently a Senior Operations Associate at Chemonics International, supporting USAID’s Global Health Supply Chain – Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project. She has extensive experience working in project management in the global health, international education, and ethical tourism sectors. In 2015-2016, Ms. Cordray served as Global Playground’s Thailand Teaching Fellow, teaching English as a foriegn language at Mae La Noi Daroonsik Secondary School in the Mae Hong Son province of Northern Thailand. Following this role, Ms. Cordray worked at Operation Groundswell as Program Leader and facilitated experiential education backpacking programs based in ethical tourism in partnership with local NGOs in Thailand and Cambodia. She then relocated to the U.S. and supported USAID’s ENVISION project as a Project Associate working at RTI International in Washington, D.C. In addition to her current work on GHSC-PSM, Ms. Cordray is also the co-chair of Chemonics’ LGBTQI+ Inclusion Technical Working Group and is an active member of Chemonics' Safeguarding Working Group as well.

S. Douglas Bunch

Chairman

Mr. Bunch is a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC. Mr. Bunch also serves as U.S. Public Delegate to the United Nations, a position to which he was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden in 2022. He holds a law degree from the William & Mary School of Law and a Bachelor’s degree in Government and Classical Studies from the College of William & Mary, where he graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Additionally, he holds a Master’s degree in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. In addition to being Co-Founder and Chairman of Global Playground, Mr. Bunch is Founder and a member of the Board of Directors of Ascanius: The Youth Classics Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes the study of Latin and Greek in the elementary and middle school classrooms. He has also served on the Board of Directors of Virginia21, an organization that advocates on behalf of college and university students in Virginia, and on the Board of Directors of the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, an organization that promotes the study of foreign languages more broadly. In 2016, the Governor of Virginia appointed Mr. Bunch to the Board of Visitors of the College of William & Mary, the university’s governing board, to which he was reappointed in 2020.

Edward F. Branagan III

Vice Chairman AND TREASURER

Mr. Branagan is an Education Officer at USAID. Previously he served as a professor of Business and Economics at McDaniel College in Budapest and as the Regional Director of Operations for Northern Europe at the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE). He also served as Associate Dean, Finance, Administration, and Student Affairs at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary where he helped establish the new graduate School of Public Policy. He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and International Economics, with a concentration in Conflict Management, from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Finance, from the College of William & Mary. Mr. Branagan has studied in San Jose, Costa Rica, taught English to students in Zenica, Bosnia, studied at Johns Hopkins University’s Bologna Center in Bologna, Italy, and completed a one-year David L. Boren Fellowship in Russia.

Alexis Canty

SECRETARY

Ms. Canty is a first grade English as a Second Language teacher at Baker Ripley Charter School in Houston, Texas. Her love of the teaching profession began after her journey to Jinotega, Nicaragua where she embarked on a week-long teaching experience with Outreach360, an international volunteer organization. She has worked in elementary education for over five years, and holds a wealth of knowledge from her multiple roles in various academic settings which include college admissions, non-profit organizations, learning centers, Head Start programs, and charter schools.

Ms. Canty attended the College of William & Mary, graduating in 2015 with a Bachelors’ degree in English and a minor in Marketing. At graduation she was honored with the Ewell Award for Excellence in Leadership, and achieved Dean’s List recognition throughout her undergraduate tenure. After graduation, Ms. Canty received a Master’s of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) degree from Relay Graduate School of Education, where she earned highest honors in the Early Childhood Education program as well as the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award. In addition to her work as an early childhood educator, Ms. Canty serves as a part-time representative of Relay in numerous roles that include graduate teaching assistant, auditor, mentor, panel speaker, and educational representative on the Relay Texas Advisory Board. Currently, Ms. Canty is a participant in the 2020-21 Oral Language Development program within Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies.

Kendall Lorenzen

Ms. Lorenzen is a student at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Previously she served as the Program Coordinator for the Eleanor Crook Foundation (ECF), a rapidly growing global nutrition foundation that is focused on ending malnutrition by funding research to identify the most effective interventions to prevent and treat malnutrition and supporting those interventions to scale through global policy and advocacy efforts. Prior to working at ECF, she served as a first grade teacher at Walker Jones Education Campus (WJEC) in Washington, D.C. where she also completed a term as an AmeriCorps volunteer as a Reading Specialist. Ms. Lorenzen is a 2015 graduate of the College of William & Mary with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. In August 2015, Ms. Lorenzen became Global Playground’s Global Management Fellow and in August 2016, the Board of Directors of Global Playground promoted Ms. Lorenzen to the rank of Deputy Executive Director. Over the duration of her time at Global Playground, Ms. Lorenzen has lived and worked in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Honduras, Uganda, and Kenya. Ms. Lorenzen served as Executive Director of Global Playground from 2017 to 2019.

Our Mission

We believe strongly that education is the most promising means to eliminating poverty, violence, intolerance, and misunderstanding in our world.