Head of SchoolMichael Saxenian

I have one of the best jobs in the world. My time leading McLean School has been rich in meaning and personal connections, the very qualities of McLean—along with deep classroom expertise—that drew me to the school when I first visited in late 2012. At McLean, I’ve been fortunate to participate in the further articulation of our methodology and the ways in which we explain it, expansion of the student body, implementation of new programming in areas such as mindfulness, robotics, and gardening, the first major capital campaign, and the expansion of our building.

I came to McLean from Sidwell Friends School, where I was the Assistant Head of School and Chief Financial Officer. At Sidwell I was able to pursue twin passions in education, including the opportunity to design and teach an economics elective to seniors, and in the environment, overseeing an expansive green building program that set an international standard for independent schools.

My work in schools has been enriched by board service. I’ve served on the boards of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), including as Treasurer, and of the National Business Officers Association (NBOA). Locally, I serve on the board of the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington (AISGW). I was a founding board member of the Green School Alliance (GSA).

I haven’t always worked in schools. My professional pathway started as a volunteer in non-formal education and “appropriate” (small scale, village) technology in Indonesia in the early 1980s, and includes business start-ups in education and in publishing related to economic development. I led the development of “Conservation Enterprises” at Conservation International through most of the 1990s. In the early 2000s I became a Vice President and General Manager at Discovery Communications, running a business unit dedicated to educational and experiential travel.

I grew up in Concord Massachusetts in a family of educators and attended the public schools there, including the high school where my mother taught English. I was slow to learn to read, and probably would have continued to languish in low level math classes but for testing that suggested—contrary to appearances, I suppose—that I was a bright child. Birth of the Abilities Model®! We were not a family of significant means, and the first airplane ride of my life took me to my freshman year at Stanford, which I financed through a combination of work study, loans, and financial aid. That flight launched me on a path of work and study that has spanned six continents, and eventually yielded three degrees from Stanford—an MBA, an MA in Development Economics, and an AB in International Relations. 

My two years living in Indonesia, immersed in local culture, language and institutions, had a profound impact on my world view. Like many young people who work abroad in this way, I developed a deep appreciation for complexity and nuance, and an understanding that no individual or society has a corner on the truth.  The volunteer organization I worked with was grounded in Quaker values, which tend to reinforce those notions, and which recognize the power of diversity and of collective wisdom. These values and perspectives inform my leadership of McLean School.  

In addition to my work at McLean, some of my favorite professional moments have included facilitating the launch of ecologically sustainable coffee in every Starbucks store across the country, thereby establishing a partnership with Conservation International that has continued for two decades; creating the first ever LEED Platinum K-12 school building, and converting a fifty-year-old gymnasium into a LEED Platinum Quaker meetinghouse. I also look back fondly on my earlier work co-authoring the Appropriate Technology Sourcebook, an 800-page resource guide to technologies for rural development, with 50,000 copies in print, and creating a 1,250-volume microfiche-based library on appropriate technology that replicated the leading appropriate technology reference collection in 1000 locations around the world.

My three daughters are now young adults, and one of them was fortunate enough to attend and graduate from McLean. Natalie’s time at McLean gave me the gift of experiencing McLean as a parent. I love spending time with family, biking, hiking, reading, and admiring art. I rely on a regular yoga practice to keep my mind and body in tune.

I hope your visit to our website will lead you to visit our School. We look forward to meeting you personally and showing you first-hand the magic of McLean and how we transform lives.