Cassie joined Koya Partners, now a Diversified Search Group company, as Managing Director in 2018. A seasoned nonprofit leader and search expert, Cassie Scarano brings a wealth of experience partnering with Boards of Directors and senior leaders to ensure they recruit and retain the best talent for their organizations. Cassie has partnered with a diverse group of clients including GreenLight Fund, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, CollegeSpring, FamilyAid, Health Care Without Harm, Invest Detroit, 826 Boston, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, BUILD, Artists for Humanity, Communities United for Police Reform, All Our Kin, and Grantmakers for Education.

Prior to Koya, Cassie served as Co-Founder and CEO of Commongood Careers, where she led all aspects of organizational strategy and operations while personally managing over 100 searches and overseeing more than 1,000 searches for innovative mission-driven organizations across the country. Cassie’s clients at Commongood Careers included New Profit, Tipping Point Community, Center for Effective Philanthropy, iMentor, and many other high-impact nonprofit organizations.

In addition to her search work, Cassie has served as a thought leader for the sector, creating and conducting training sessions on effective nonprofit recruiting and hiring, integrating an equity lens into the recruiting and hiring process, and conducting an effective job search in the social sector. In 2015, she partnered with the Robin Hood Foundation to create LeaderLink, an innovative program to recruit and select senior-level leaders from the private sector to participate in a training program to prepare them to transition into leadership roles within the nonprofit sector.

Prior to Commongood Careers, Cassie held a variety of senior leadership roles in nonprofit organizations, which gives her a valuable perspective when partnering with nonprofit leaders on talent-related issues. As the Dean of Admissions at The Steppingstone Foundation, Cassie led the team recruiting and selecting students and families for a rigorous academic enrichment and college access program. At The New Teacher Project, she recruited mid-career professionals for an alternative teacher certification process to build the pipeline of teachers for the six highest need school districts in Massachusetts. Earlier in her career, she served as Director of Summerbridge Cambridge (now Breakthrough Greater Boston) where she helped grow the program by 40%. After her transition Cassie was invited to sit on the Board where she served as co-chair of the governance committee and a member of the expansion committee.

Cassie is currently a Board member of World Ocean School and previously served as an advisor to Equity in the Center.

She holds a BA in Sociology from Northwestern University, an MA in Education from Boston University, and an MBA in Nonprofit Management from Boston University

Education

MBA, Nonprofit Management
Boston University

MA, Education
Boston University

BA, Sociology
Northwestern University