SPEND Team

Katie Roy

Executive Director

Katie Roy serves as the Executive Director of the SPEND Initiative. She is a recognized national expert in education finance with nearly two decades of experience across the sector. Katie brings a unique perspective to SPEND, having viewed education finance through the lens of a local practitioner, a state-level policy leader, and a national expert.

Ten years ago, she founded the School + State Finance Project, a successful technical research and policy center that focuses on data-driven school funding analysis and improving fiscal transparency across the state of Connecticut. Prior to launching SPEND, she served as a Partner and General Counsel at Education Resource Strategies (ERS), a non-profit organization where she worked directly with state and district leaders in Texas and across the country on strategic resource allocation.

Her professional background also includes serving as a school district CFO, providing first-hand experience with the operational and technical realities of local education finance. As an attorney with deep expertise in education finance policy and data analytics, Katie currently serves on the Board of Directors for EdFund, further strengthening the strategic alignment between SPEND and the broader education data community.