Our Team

LCG is an EdTech Marketing Agency with a unique team includes a combination of talent that pairs deep education knowledge with advanced community-building, social media, content marketing, and SEO expertise.

Our team brings decades of experience, passion, and knowledge of working within this unique industry to ensure your marketing efforts align with your target audience's top needs. We also collaborate with an extensive network of subject matter and education experts.

 

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Elana D. Leoni

chief executive officer

 

Elana has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.

Elana is the host of the popular podcast, All Things Marketing and Education, and she blogs and speaks nationally at social media and education conferences.

Given her passion for equity and access, Elana served on the board of Mt. Tam College and helped them become the first-ever U.S. university that is based inside a prison. She has been recognized twice by CMX as 82 Amazing Community Professionals You Need to Know and was instrumental in introducing education un-conferences, called Edcamps, to the West Coast.

Elana graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and received her MBA from the Haas School of Business, Berkeley.

In her spare time, she loves to travel internationally, practice yoga, play a lot of old man sports (bocce, shuffleboard, bowling), and does pretty much anything out on the water including sailing, kayaking, and scuba diving. She currently lives in San Rafael, California.


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Porter Palmer

VP of JOY

 

Porter joined LCG in 2018 and brought decades of experience as a classroom teacher, curriculum and assessment specialist, and community builder to her role at LCG helping top education brands with their digital marketing, program evaluation, and relationship building.

Since she started grading her big brother’s school workbooks as a preschooler, Porter has had a singular career commitment to education. With her bachelor’s of science from Lander University and several certifications in hand, she taught in South Carolina’s public school system for eight years before leaving the classroom to help states create and study standards-based curriculum and assessments for students with disabilities.

She discovered a passion for connecting teachers using social media, blogs, newsletters, and in-person events. So, Porter spent a decade developing and managing the DEN, Discovery Communication's award-winning community of practice for technology-loving educators.

She holds an M.S. Ed. in instructional media from Wilkes University and serves on the board of the LCG Foundation, a private grant-making nonprofit focused on improving education.


Hillary Trussel

Senior Social Media Manager

 

Hillary is a seasoned social media strategist with over a decade of experience across digital marketing, consulting, and education. With eight years as a business communications instructor, she deeply understands educators’ challenges, crafting impactful strategies tailored for EdTech brands. Her marketing work in higher education further honed her skills in promoting resources and fostering student engagement. Currently a senior social media manager at LCG, Hillary leverages data analysis and trend insights to optimize social media strategies for top EdTech clients, maximizing engagement and ROI.

In addition to her work in higher education, Hillary has consulted B2B and B2C businesses and organizations, helping them amplify their digital presence. In her current role as a senior social media manager at LCG, Hillary specializes in developing impactful social media strategies for leading EdTech brands. With a strong foundation in data analysis and an eye for emerging trends, Hillary refines strategies to optimize engagement and maximize ROI for her clients.

She holds an M.S. in Management and Leadership and a B.S. in Communication Studies from Tarleton State University. Outside work, she enjoys time with her three young children and volunteers at their school to support the education community.


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Anna Fields

Head of Ops

 

Anna brings over 20 years experience streamlining organizations to be more efficient and organized in various industries, including the Department of Defense and The Walt Disney Company. For the past 12 years she has worked Production in visual effects, animation, advertising and on educational videos for the George Lucas Educational Foundation. In addition to production management, she has performed every capacity in filmmaking from behind the camera to editing.

She enjoys finding fun and creative ways for her 5 year old daughter to learn about the world around her; cooking recipes, stargazing with a Dobsonian telescope and rock hunting across the Pacific Northwest. She is most proud of the time she spends volunteering daily at her daughter's school; doing activities in the classroom, working with students in the literacy program, monitoring the playground, assisting with art projects, shelving library books, and tidying the staff supply closet.

Anna graduated magna cum laude with a bachelors in management from Park University and received a bachelors in professional aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University after serving in the United States Air Force.


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Jordan Moldenhauer

Content Marketing Coordinator

 

Stemming from her passion for storytelling, Jordan is a content marketer, helping create newsletters, podcasts, blogs, emails, web pages, white papers, eBooks, and more. She loves working with mission-driven brands to amplify their authentic messages and provide value for their audiences (and organizing Gantt charts.)

Jordan first started work in EdTech as a high school senior, when she was granted the opportunity to write the forward for The Hyperdoc Handbook. She has always believed that the classroom should be a creative and innovative space, and is passionate about providing resources for those opportunities to all students and educators. In her free time, she loves to go on long walks, cook elaborate meals, work on mindfulness, and continue her passion for literature through both reading and writing constantly. 

With over three years at LCG, she oversees both company content and client production, ensuring engagement across all platforms. She originally joined as a Digital Marketing Intern in June 2021 and has prior experience as an editorial fellow for an online magazine. Jordan holds a B.A. in Literature with minors in Sociology and Communications from American University.


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Jason Altman

evaluation lead

 

Jason Torres Altman provides consulting support to statewide or large regional entities advocating for policy support for and programming primarily in K-12 public schools. Since his career began in 2002, all of Jason’s project work has emphasized elevating the voices of the most affected and often least empowered stakeholders, as well as deeply considering nuance and context at the local level.

His desire is that he can contribute to the changing of hearts and minds about what’s important in local school communities and the responsibility to serve these schools and local agencies in the way that they choose to be served. Jason is a published professional with more than 40 academic papers, reports, and journal articles, and more than 80 academic presentations to his credit.

Jason has over 20 years of experience in the grant writing for and the developmental, formative and summative evaluation of K-12 educational programming, including public school professional development efforts, adult learning programs designed by federal, state and local departments of education, volunteer programs, local and state technology initiatives, and analysis of policy and administration. He has a strong history in grant writing and working with mixed methods in educational evaluation, including the use of national data sets, state data sets, educator data, and student data, including achievement data, and federal reporting.

Jason earned is M.A. in Education Policy and Administration and Evaluation Studies from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in Journalism from Hamline University.


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Jen Gibson

Head of People

 

With more than 25 years of experience in education, public policy, project management, and K12 development, Jen specializes in strategic thinking and unique approaches to work on behalf of LCG’s clients. As a former classroom elementary teacher and director of curriculum, Jen has led district initiatives and implemented technology adoptions to integrate curriculum with research-based practices. Jen was the recipient of Santa Barbara’s Teacher of the Year in 2010. She led her district through multiple research grants and partnerships with outside agencies including State, County, and outside organizations (WestEd). During this time she was also an adjunct faculty member at Chapman University’s Attallah College of Educational Studies for over 7 years.

After 17 years in public education, Jen shifted to the private sector becoming the Chief Learning Officer of Lesson Planet for eight years. While there she served to develop the open education resource platform and led the launch of a separate online digital badge learning platform, PD Learning Network. The platform was awarded a 2016 Cool Tools Finalist by EdTech Digest its first year. Jen earned her M.A. in Teaching with a focus on technology from Chapman University. Jen loves to hike and helps keep her local trails maintained in her free time. 


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Alan Lipton

content marketing lead

 

Alan calls himself a fictioneer because he believes in enhancing the narrative power that drives all communication. He began writing stories as soon as he learned the alphabet and has always been fascinated by how people use spoken language. He spent over a decade as a small-press managing editor and business manager at EKS Publishing, and has since worked as a consulting copywriter and editor in the entertainment, education, marketing, health media, and UX sectors. Notable clients and brands include CircumStance Design, Deloitte, Fox Interactive, High Voltage Interactive, iVillage, The Learning Company, Phoenix Pop Productions, Questus, The Astrologer.com, 3Com, and tribalmedia.

Alan's standout achievements include five years as Edutopia blog editor for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, and eight years as a scriptwriter/editor/producer and PR writer for On the Path Productions. Alan earned a B.A. in English Literature from U.C. Berkeley. He still resides in that strange city, amusing himself as an unpublished novelist and songwriting busker.


Partners & Collaborators