Christina Sass

Christina Sass is the Co-Founder and President of Andela or, as CNN has called it, “The startup that’s harder to get into than Harvard”.

Founded on the idea that brilliance is evenly distributed, Andela’s mission to find and empower the next generation of global technology leaders. Specifically, Andela aims to train 100,000 world-class software developers in Africa over the next 10 years. To do so, Andela created a new model of education that funds itself through the work it does: training brilliant young software developers and placing them with top international companies. With a .6% acceptance rate, Andela is the most selective tech training program in Africa and has been featured by Wired, CNN, The Today Show, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and others.

Prior to founding Andela, Christina built education and employment programs in China, Gaza and the West Bank, Kenya, and in her home state of Georgia. During her three years directing the Program Department at The Clinton Global Initiative she worked closely with President Clinton and his office to design and execute CGI meetings featuring over 1200 attendees and 250 speakers. Christina worked with Fortune 500 CEOs, Nobel Laureates, Heads of States and other global leaders to advance CGI’s Commitments to Action with a particular focus on empowerment of girls and women. Christina also served as senior advisor to the President and CEO of The MasterCard Foundation, a private foundation based with over $12 billion in assets working to advance education, employment and financial inclusion in Africa. There she focused on cultivating partnerships from within the Foundation’s portfolio to create better pipelines for youth across Africa from education into employment working with Ashesi University, African Leadership Academy, Equity Bank, the IFC and more.

Christina serves on the Advisory Council of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and on the board of the non-profit, the Global Give Back Circle. She has also served as education topic expert for the Clinton Global Initiative University annual meeting. She was named as a 2014 New York Business Journal “Women of Influence,” a 2015 Business Insider “23 most innovative and inspiring women in New York City Tech” and a 2015 University of Georgia “40 Under 40” Alumni. Christina has a BA in Ancient Philosophy from the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs) and a MA in International Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.