Disrupting the education space
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SUCCESS ACAD EMY D I S RUP T I NG THE E DUCAT I ON SPACE
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SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS
Vincent Moorehead, Senior Director of Strategic Procurement and Supply Chain at Success Academy Charter Schools, discusses his organisation’s transformation journey in New York City
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S
Success Academy Charter Schools is the largest and highest-performing free public charter school network in New
York State. It’s the size of the seventh largest school district in the state. Founded in Harlem in 2006 by former New York City Council Member Eva Moskowitz, the organisation now operates 45 schools, enrolling 18,000 students in grades K-12, most of them low-income children of colour, in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. In a city where only one in three children of colour can read or do math at grade level, Success Academy’s scholars have excelled. On the most recent state exams, 99% of Success students passed mathematics and 90% passed English Language Arts. With ambitions to operate 100 schools and enroll 50,000 students over the next decade, Success Academy is driven to innovate in the realm of pedagogy as well as procurement.
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2006
Year founded
HQ
New York, NY USA
2,500 Number of employees
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We Can Build It: Success Academy Charter Schools CLICK TO WATCH
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3:48
07 Overseeing the organisation’s procurement arm, Vincent Moorehead, Senior Director of Strategic Procurement and Supply Chain, believes that Success Academy is differentiated by a culture of excellence: “Excellence is ingrained in our culture. Our customers are our scholars and their families,” explains Moorehead. “Our work is extremely high stakes. To us, it’s all about consistently raising the bar for what is possible in public education. We need to always be thinking about how we can deliver a great education to our
“ Our work is extremely high stakes. To us, it’s all about consistently raising the bar for what is possible in public education” — Vincent Moorehead, Senior Director of Strategic Procurement and Supply Chain, Success Academy Charter Schools w w w.suc c e ssa c a de m ies . org
SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS
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“ If you look at charter schools generally, we are one of the few that has a procurement team” — Vincent Moorehead, Senior Director of Strategic Procurement and Supply Chain, Success Academy Charter Schools
scholars and how we can use each dollar to make the biggest impact in our classrooms.” Operating efficiencies are critical to Success Academy. With public funding that’s about $5,000 less per student than what district schools spend each year, the network prioritises strong management of its resources. Moorehead has been instrumental in delivering savings. “The role of management is undervalued in public schooling,” says
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Moskowitz. “Educators everywhere
A graduate from Howard University in
acknowledge the impact of effec-
Washington, D.C, Moorehead worked
tive teachers, but what is less often
for several different companies such
recognised—yet essential to creating
as United Technologies Corporation,
and sustaining excellent schools—is
Kearney, and the FBI before joining
the need for operational excellence.
Success Academy in August 2018.
When the administrative and business
Upon his arrival, the organisation
aspects of schools are well managed,
decided to centralise the entire
teachers and principals are freed up
purchasing area across the board.
to focus entirely on student learning.
“When I first started, we had so many
Vince has been important in helping
conversations about what a central-
us achieve this.”
ised procurement model would look w w w.suc c e ssa c a de m ies . org
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like,” he says. “If you look at charter
processes, which led to the imple-
schools generally, we are one of the
mentation of Coupa and a centralised
few that has a procurement team. The
approach. He focused on making the
first thing we had to do was map out
programme as streamlined as pos-
an ideal purchasing process for our
sible. “I wanted something that was
network of schools. It was vital that we
very user-friendly because our users
had the right tools, systems, and pro-
are educators, not procurement spe-
cesses in place for our team to be able
cialists. They should be able to focus
to imagine how streamlined this new
on their scholars, not on purchasing
process could be for our school staff.”
orders,” says Moorehead. “I wanted
Subsequently, Moorehead set about updating several outdated and broken
a system in place where they could make requests for classroom supplies 11
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Vincent Moorehead Vincent Moorehead currently leads procurement at Success Academy Charter Schools, the largest and highest-performing free public charter school network in New York City. He leads a team that manages contract negotiations, supply chain, tactical and strategic sourcing in order to secure every thinkable material (from chapter books, furniture, to interactive whiteboards) for 18,000+ students in the NYC area. Vincent’s background is primarily within Supply Chain Management focusing on Operations and Procurement. Prior to joining SACS in 2018, he worked in management consulting at Efficio Consulting and A.T. Kearney, global sourcing at United Technologies, with unique experience in government contracting at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
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SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS
“ Educators everywhere acknowledge the impact of effective teachers, but what is less often recognised — yet essential to creating and sustaining excellent schools — is the need for operational excellence” 12
— Eva Moskowitz, Founder and CEO, Success Academy Charter Schools
in a way that they’re used to, similar to buying something on Amazon. On the backend, our procurement team still has the control, and we can now see what the needs of each classroom are in real time, as our teachers and school leaders make purchase requests. With this knowledge, we’re better prepared for our next school year. We better anticipate what we’ll need to stock in all of our classrooms based on what our educators request this year.” Having overseen many ERP implementations over the years, Moorehead affirms that this was one of the least troublesome he’s dealt with. “It was one of the smoothest transitions that I’ve ever been through and we implemented the system in just eight months,” he explains. “We phased out the launch and were able to trial the system before implementing it fully across our network. I’m pleased to say that after the initial hurdle of learning a new system, Success Academy staff members regularly stop me in the hallway and tell me how much easier the new platform is to use.” Success Academy places significant value on its partnerships. The network w w w.suc c e ssa c a de m ies . org
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Take a Look Inside a Success Academy School CLICK TO WATCH
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1:47
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“ I’m looking for a partner that understands the mission and wants to help us get there” — Vincent Moorehead, Senior Director of Strategic Procurement and Supply Chain, Success Academy Charter Schools
has formed several key strategic relationships, such as with The Advance Group, CrossCountry Consulting, KI, and OpenText. Moorehead believes that any prospective partnership must have the right drive and mentality to succeed from the start. “I’m looking for a partner that understands the mission and wants to help us get there,” says Moorehead. “The suppliers that we currently work with understand the challenges that we go through. However, it’s important that there’s mutual benefit and I’m constantly w w w.suc c e ssa c a de m ies . org
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ki.com/ruckus
thinking about ways we can help make
including working with our internal
our suppliers’ jobs easier. By doing this,
and external technical teams, and was
we can support them not just for the
able to help reduce the change man-
immediate future, but long term too.”
agement impact on the organisation,”
Moorehead affirms that each
he explains. “OpenText has a digital
partnership plays a critical role in
platform that helps us protect our
ensuring Success Academy runs
data — which is critical for us because
efficiently. “CrossCountry Consulting
we’re protecting student privacy. All
was brought on board as our imple-
of our integrations use a partner for
mentation partner to help us roll out
error management and manage data
our new purchasing system, and they
as it flows from system to system.
have been outstanding. The team,
OpenText is at the heart of that and
led by Harpreet Narula, Partner at
has data that flows through it from our
CrossCountry, had in-depth knowl-
Human Resource Information Systems
edge of the purchasing system,
(HRIS) to our financial systems and
managed the entire implementation
to our purchasing platform.”
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SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS
C O M PA N Y FACT S
• Last summer, Success delivered over 300,000 items per classroom across our 45 schools. • On the most recent state exams, 99% of Success students passed mathematics and 90% passed English Language Arts.
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• For the 2019-20 academic year, Success Academy schools received more than 17,000 applications for about 4,000 open seats.
“KI has helped with providing innovative furniture and has been suggesting and updating products to ensure that our school design is as efficient as possible,” says Moorehead. “The Advance Group is our logistics partner. They deliver and install all the furniture in each classroom. Last summer, Success delivered over 300,000 items per classroom across our 45 schools. The Advance Group truly understands the critical nature of our mission and they are a reliable partner in making sure each of our classrooms is ready for scholars on the first day of school.” With a vision to operate 100 schools in New York City, Moorehead has a clear idea of how to achieve such ambitions. “I’m very optimistic and I believe we will get to 100 schools comfortably. By then, we’ll likely be serving over 50,000 students across New York,” says Moorehead. “That’s the size of the Boston or Atlanta school system.”
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95 Pine St., New York, NY 10005 USA info@successacademies.org www.successacademies.org