Team Biographies
Nadine Abraham, Director, Impact Advisory
Nadine translates data into insights that drive systems change and improve outcomes for children, families, and communities. She collaborates with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure research informs practical, measurable solutions – and brings deep experience across and understanding of the intersectionality between workforce development, education, homelessness, mental health, and impact investing.
Recent projects include (1) leading national efforts to expand access to pre-apprenticeship programs by partnering with training providers to analyze data, identify success factors, and build the case for increased investment; (2) supporting Santa Barbara County in developing and refining the theory of change for its mental health crisis response program, aligning stakeholders on goals and metrics; and (3) collaborating with the Tepper Foundation to design and pilot an outcomes-based incentive program to increase Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) uptake in New Jersey.
Nadine brings 15 years of experience in systems change, with a focus on improving outcomes for youth. Before joining Social Finance, she served as a Portfolio Manager at the One8 Foundation, supporting high-performing nonprofits and collaborating with schools and districts to scale evidence-based models—including partnerships with the CAPS network and local schools in Kansas City, where she gained valuable on-the-ground experience. Her earlier roles include Chief of Strategy and Operations at a Massachusetts charter school network and Director at the District Management Group, where she partnered with K-12 schools nationwide to enhance educational outcomes. Nadine began her career at Oliver Wyman, specializing in strategic operations and organizational design.
Nadine is deeply committed to mentoring and volunteer leadership, with over 15 years of contributions to organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Neurodiversity Alliance, and Silver Linings Mentoring—supporting youth who face barriers to opportunity and benefit from dedicated guidance and advocacy.
Nadine graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. from Wellesley College, majoring in Economics with a minor in Mathematics.
Thomas Coen, Director, Data Analytics and Evaluation
Thomas manages Social Finance’s data insights team to support our public sector partners in data-driven decision making, program monitoring and evaluation, developing and executing on their data analytics strategy, and building data visualizations and dashboards. Thomas provides support throughout a project’s lifecycle—including on project design to ensure measures are clearly defined and aligned to the project’s theory of change; project monitoring to track outputs and outcomes and oversee data analysis; and project learning to interpret results and identify any program adjustments.
Thomas’s work portfolio focuses on workforce development and training. Recent projects include: (1) collaborating with Opportunity Insights to measure the returns to workforce trainings and develop communities of practice and partnerships with state departments of labor, community college systems, policy researchers, and training providers (2) overseeing theory of change development, data collection, metric definitions, and data visualizations for workforce training impact investing projects, such as the UP Fund, a $50 million pool of catalytic capital; (3) managing a representative survey and focus groups of child care directors in Texas to inform recommendations to strengthen the child care workforce; and (4) data analytics support to a workforce board in Texas to identify learnings and opportunities for improvement in job placement and wage gains.
Prior to joining Social Finance, Thomas was a researcher at Mathematica where he led experimental, quasi-experimental, and mixed methods evaluations of social programs. Thomas also led a randomized controlled trial of farmer’s social networks in Malawi for Innovations for Poverty Action. Thomas has a Master’s in Public Affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a bachelor’s degree in economics and government from Wesleyan University.
Amber Ivey, Vice President, Impact Advisory
Amber is currently a Vice President at Social Finance where she leads a team that helps governments drive impact and co-leads the AI Learning and Innovation Hub, which empowers government agencies to test, refine, and scale AI solutions tailored to workforce development and economic mobility. She also provided strategic oversight on workforce initiatives across the San Antonio Workforce Development Office Pay It Forward Fund, Families and Workers Fund Powering Climate and Infrastructure Careers for All, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and Wisconsin Works.
In her prior role, as the Senior Director for the Bloomberg Philanthropies Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, she led a team that assisted governments in utilizing data and performance management for decision-making. Furthermore, she played a key role in the design and launch of the Bloomberg Philanthropies City Data Alliance. The program aims to train 100 mayors and their senior leaders throughout the Americas on utilizing data to achieve better outcomes. Formerly, she worked at The Pew Charitable Trust—a nonprofit focused on solving today’s challenges by using data-driven, nonpartisan analysis. Here, Amber led the data collection and organization efforts of a first-of-its-kind research study on how all 50 states and the District of Columbia use data to solve complex problems, improve the delivery of government services, manage resources, and evaluate effectiveness. Amber led a team that provided technical as well as strategic assistance to states and counties, who were working towards streamlining their business processes and launching technology, like legal assistance websites and online courts, to modernize and improve access to the legal system.
Before joining Pew, Amber served at Maryland StateStat, a performance-measurement and management office established by former Governor Martin O’Malley (D). Following the change in administration, she helped facilitate the transition by demonstrating the effectiveness of data-driven decision-making through StateStat. Also, she played a key role in the Governor’s Office of Performance Improvement under Governor Larry Hogan (R).
She has her MPA and J.D. and is excited to serve at the intersection of data, technology, public policy, and law.
Patty Beirne, Co-Founder, Civic Design Collaborative
Patty is a strategic leader with over 20 years of experience in public engagement, design, and civic innovation. She has worked extensively building internal innovation capacity programs in civic, cultural, healthcare, and educational institutions. She excels at building inclusive programs, leading multidisciplinary teams, and shaping mission-aligned strategies to launch and scale public initiatives promoting equity, wellness, and engagement.
As co-founder of Civic Design Collaborative, Patty strengthens public institutions and government programs by embedding innovation practices, advising and training practitioners, and strengthening strategic portfolios by centering the people they serve. Previously, as Principal Design Strategist at The Lab at OPM, she led federal public sector transformation, managing cross-agency programming and portfolio strategy. She has also served as Creative Lead of Design Innovation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design, where she helped launch the MFA in Transdisciplinary Design, serving as Studio Director.
Nadine Foik, Co-Founder, Civic Design Collaborative
Nadine is a service design and programmatic strategy leader with over a decade of experience helping public-good institutions deliver more effective and people-centered services. She brings deep expertise across design research, program development, and business growth, with a proven ability to guide teams through complexity and translate ambitious ideas into actionable initiatives. Nadine has led cross-functional efforts in the U.S. and internationally, improving outcomes in highly regulated sectors including government and healthcare.
As co-founder of Civic Design Collaborative, she partners with government agencies and civic-minded organizations to embed people-centered service design practices that advance accessibility and equity in public services. Previously, she served as Service Design and Partnership Development Lead at The Lab at OPM, where she secured over $18 million in funding, led government-wide initiatives, and established enduring federal partnerships. She has also held leadership roles at Desklight Learning and Catapult Design, where she built high-performing teams and led initiatives in global health, entrepreneurship, and financial mobility. Nadine holds a Master of Industrial Product Design from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish/Hispanic Cultures with minors in Philosophy and Fine Arts.
Jacob Fahringer, Associate Director, Data Analytics
Jacob leads policy research and data visualization, including developing dashboards to track learner outcomes for workforce development funds in New Jersey, Colorado, and the national UP Fund. He has worked with nurse home visiting programs in Missouri and Delaware, helping them calculate outcome rate card payments and identify ways to improve outcomes. He built an interactive web application to calculate quarterly payments for services delivered for a program that provides services to adults with disabilities. Currently, he helps lead a project between the Social Finance Institute and Opportunity Insights to better understand the returns to workforce training, building relationships with training providers and state data leaders across the country.
Previously, Jacob worked as the Senior Quantitative Research Associate at Ballast Research, a government affairs consulting firm, where he supported large-scale survey research and led data analysis projects. Prior to that, Jacob worked as a Senior Research Assistant at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC. At the Federal Reserve Board, Jacob focused on work related to financial stability research and policy. During his tenure, he led the analyst team in preparing the Financial Stability report, which was presented to the Board of Governors. Jacob graduated from the Ohio State University with a B.S. in Economics.
Zane Heflin, Senior Associate, Impact Advisory
Zane has supported innovative outcomes-based initiatives including two workforce funds: the UP Fund and the New Jersey Pay It Forward Fund (NJ PIFF). His work also spans projects serving unhoused populations—such as reducing recidivism in Hamilton County, TN, and preventing family homelessness in Clackamas County, OR—as well as supporting Ukrainian refugee resettlement in Massachusetts through the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program. Additionally, he has conducted research on impact investing adoption by private foundations on behalf of Builders Vision.
Before joining Social Finance, Zane was a Policy Analyst at The New Center, a bipartisan think tank, where he led the organization’s economic and foreign policy portfolio. Earlier in his career, he worked in policy research roles focused on Middle East policy and youth unemployment.
Zane holds a MicroMasters in Data, Economics, and Development Policy (DEDP) from MIT and dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and International Affairs from George Washington University.
Catherine Dun Rappaport, Vice President, Impact Investments
Catherine’s work focuses on helping impact investors, philanthropic partners, government agencies, and community-based organizations deploy capital and deliver programming in ways that support economic and racial justice.
Catherine has over 20 years of experience leading learning functions at mission-driven organizations, collaborating with clients and community partners on research that informs investment and programming, and sharing lessons learned with diverse audiences. Catherine imbues her work with both humility and rigor, and strives to ensure that it is practical, accessible, and above-all useful for the partners and communities it serves.
Prior to joining Social Finance, Catherine was Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact Management at BlueHub Capital, a national community development financial institution (CDFI). There, she spearheaded the development of the Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) function, and she led efforts to assess and increase the impact of BlueHub’s investments. She also created tools that evaluated investments’ potential to support racial equity, and she led field-building efforts to help other socially responsible investors develop effective IMM strategies.
Catherine also served as the Vice President of Learning and Analytics at the United Way of Mass Bay and as a senior research consultant at Abt Associates. Catherine overhauled United Way’s systems for determining how to allocate funding to nonprofit organizations. Her efforts simplified the process, rewarded performance, and increased transparency and equity. At Abt, Catherine led evaluation and technical assistance projects focused on economically disadvantaged families and low-wage workers. Catherine also has five years of direct experience working in community-based organizations that support low-income children. As a young professional, she founded and ran a local chapter of Read to a Child.
Catherine serves on the Board of Directors of the Children’s Investment Fund, and is a senior advisor to Impact Frontiers, a member of Social Value-US, and an Ambassador for Leap of Reason. She graduated with honors from Amherst College and received a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.
Hydie Kim Hudson, Vice President, Impact Investments
Hydie leads a portfolio of economic mobility initiatives that leverage innovative financing models, including the $25 million New Jersey Pay It Forward Program, a first-of-its-kind blended public-private workforce development fund, and the $33 million San Diego Pay It Forward workforce fund focused on behavioral health. She partners with state and local government and leading national foundations to develop and administer outcomes-based financing structures.
Prior to joining Social Finance, Hydie worked in international development and impact finance in East Africa with organizations such as One Acre Fund and Acumen. Hydie began her career as a strategy and management consultant, advising Fortune 500 clients in various industries, including financial services and consumer products.
Hydie holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she was named a Youn Impact Scholar, and a BA in Literature from Yale University. Hydie is also a certified executive and leadership coach credentialed by the International Coaching Federation.