WELCOME TO GOAL BEYOND
Get to know us, our team, our standards, and our impact.
OUR STORY
Where learning meets opportunity
Goal Beyond is a non-profit organization with a commitment to higher education access and sustainable economic mobility options for all.
We empower students from underserved communities across the U.S. to secure quality first jobs by obtaining critical educational resources and training along the continuum of their journeys.
We are dedicated to the success of each learner to complete their studies, pursue their desired career path, and unlock the full value of their earning potential.​
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Through collaborative cross-sector partnerships, we develop programs that meet learners where they are, providing sustainable solutions to address access and economic mobility issues that affect learners at the top and bottom of the academic funnel.
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Our work began in 2021 through our sister organization Goal Beyond, Inc., offering scholarships and wrap around services alongside the launch of the Economic Mobility Fund. Goal Beyond Inc., transitioned into a private foundation and, in 2024, we launched Goal Beyond Group as a public charity to continue our mission with a renewed focus on education and economic mobility for learners.
OUR CORE VALUES
Underpinning everything we do, we are:
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IMPACT-DRIVEN
Data, rigor, and analytics are woven into our ethos.
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INCLUSIVE
Community, diversity, and engagement are constantly in focus.
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TRANSPARENT
Open communication, integrity, and trust are fundamental to our work.
MEET OUR TEAM
Ken Ruggiero
Co-Founder & CEO
Ken is a veteran and innovator in education finance with more than 20 years spent leading teams that create meaningful change and positive returns for students, schools, employees and investors. During his tenure at Goal Financial, from 2003-2007, the company originated more than $8 billion of private and government guaranteed student loans, becoming a top 10 student-loan provider in the country. After the company’s exit from the lending space in 2008, Ken founded Goal Solutions and eventually, Goal Investment Group, a family of financial technology companies which serve the consumer finance market.
Goal Solutions services and manages over $26 billion in consumer loans. Since 2013, Goal Investment Management has invested over $240 million of its capital in over 60 transactions. Since 2015, Ken has served as Co-Founder and CEO of Ascent, a student focused education finance company which seeks to revolutionize the way students plan, pay, and succeed in school. Ascent has made over $1B of loans to 100,000 students attending US Colleges and skills training programs. Ken received his B.B.A from the University of Massachusetts and his M.B.A from Columbia University.
Tochi Izegbu
Chief Operating Officer
Tobechukwu “Tochi” Izegbu is an executive with over 15 years of experience spanning the public, non-profit, and private sectors. She has worked in deeply complex global environments as a leader of matrixed teams to deliver world-class, high-impact solutions - programs totaling over $30B cumulatively - at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Africare, the United Nations Foundation, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), and Goldman Sachs.
Tochi has held management roles in advisory, sales, operational, and technical functions and currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Goal Beyond. As COO, Tochi oversees all functions to include strategy, capital mobilization and financial management, operations, compliance, branding and marketing, as well as partnership development.
Tochi graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Global Affairs and Chinese Studies from George Mason University after beginning her studies in Lille, France. She holds a World Executive MBA in Entrepreneurship from George Washington University. She speaks fluent French and in her spare time, Tochi continues to strengthen her Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and Serbian skills.
Tristan Fleming
Co-Founder & Secretary
Tristan Fleming has spent more than two decades in education finance, focusing on the positive impact of education on economic mobility and wealth building. He is currently the Chief Impact Officer and General Counsel of Goal Investment Group and its two primary operating companies, Goal Solutions and Ascent Funding. In that role, Tristan and his teams are responsible for the annual impact report, philanthropic initiative management, outcomes tracking, and all legal affairs of the company and its subsidiaries - including litigation, compliance, legal strategy, and corporate governance.
Previously, Tristan spent 9 years as General Counsel of GCO Education Loan Funding Corp., a student loan company with over $6B in assets under management at its peak. Prior to GCO, Tristan was an associate at the law firm of Thacher Proffitt & Wood, LLP in New York City, starting out in the Corporate and Financial Institutions group and then specializing in private student loan securitizations. He has also spent time working pro bono for various not-for-profit and charitable organizations, focusing on corporate governance and litigation management. Tristan is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the Georgetown University Law Center, where he published an article on bilingual education in public schools in the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal.
Ryan Gray
Co-Founder & Treasurer
Ryan Gray is a 20-year veteran of the consumer finance industry and serves as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for Ascent Funding. He was previously the Chief Financial Officer and Head of Structured Finance Operations at Goal Solutions where he led the debt and equity financing efforts that supported the investment and lending businesses. Having spent his career in accounting, finance, treasury and capital markets roles, Ryan brings rigorous financial acumen, analytics, systems and controls that has enabled the growth of the Structured Finance Operations platform to over $25b of assets under management and has been involved in structuring over $10B of student, auto and solar loan asset-backed securitizations, warehouse financing and forward flow agreements. Ryan is a skilled leader in building teams in rapid growth financial operations which include Capital One and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Ken Ruggiero
Board Chair
Ken is a veteran and innovator in education finance with more than 20 years spent leading teams that create meaningful change and positive returns for students, schools, employees and investors. During his tenure at Goal Financial, from 2003-2007, the company originated more than $8 billion of private and government guaranteed student loans, becoming a top 10 student-loan provider in the country. After the company’s exit from the lending space in 2008, Ken founded Goal Solutions and eventually, Goal Investment Group, a family of financial technology companies which serve the consumer finance market.
Goal Solutions services and manages over $26 billion in consumer loans. Since 2013, Goal Investment Management has invested over $240 million of its capital in over 60 transactions. Since 2015, Ken has served as Co-Founder and CEO of Ascent, a student focused education finance company which seeks to revolutionize the way students plan, pay, and succeed in school. Ascent has made over $1B of loans to 100,000 students attending US Colleges and skills training programs. Ken received his B.B.A from the University of Massachusetts and his M.B.A from Columbia University.
Michael A. Kartalija (Belch)
Board Member
Michael Belch is an Emeritus Professor of Marketing at San Diego State University (SDSU) where he teaches integrated marketing communications (IMC) and is the Director of the Centre for Integrated Marketing Communications. During his tenure at SDSU he has received numerous outstanding professor awards. In addition to SDSU he has taught in France, Spain, China, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, and the Netherlands. Dr. Belch has co-authored numerous articles in academic journals on advertising, consumer behavior, and international marketing.
Additionally, he co-authored the number one IMC textbook, Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective with his brother George Belch. The text is now in its 13th edition and is translated into 11 languages.
Professor Belch’s previous employment includes: marketing representative for General Foods Corporation, and he has served as a consultant to a number of Fortune 500 companies including McDonalds, Whirlpool Corporation, Senco Products, Viasat, GTI Corporation, IVAC, and May Companies, as well as advertising agencies including Phillips-Ramsey and Dailey & Associates. Dr. Belch received his undergraduate degree in Marketing from the Pennsylvania State University, his MBA from Drexel University and his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh.
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Kim Folsom
Board Member
Kim Folsom is the founder and CEO of Founders First Capital Partners, Inc, (FFCP) a revenue-based investment and advisory support investment platform. FFCP is the largest private provider of growth funding for service-based businesses and the only Black and women-led, revenue-based venture platform raising $150M in committed capital.
FFCP is focused on partnering with employer-based, contract revenue generating small businesses ($500K to $10M), to provide them with flexible and non-dilutive funding, expertise and resources to achieve exponential growth in underserved communities. Kim is also the founder of Founders First CDC, a not-for-profit, community development organization and micro-small business accelerator with a mission to help underserved and underrepresented small business owners overcome the challenges they face due to by lack of access to capital and human capital business growth expertise to assist them with increasing business capacity resulting in higher revenue growth and providing more jobs. Since their founding in 2015 the firm has provided funding and/or growth support to approximately 650 companies. As a social entrepreneur, Ms. Folsom is dedicated to leveraging the power of market forces and sound business practices to address disparities in revenue and job growth among businesses led by underrepresented founders.
Prior to Founders First she has raised more than $30 million in institutional committed venture financing, created over 500 premium wage jobs and has founded or served as a key executive for six successful ventures, including showUhow (acquired by Sellpoints), DriveCam (now Lytx) and Seminarsource. Before devoting her energies to entrepreneurship, Ms. Folsom was a tech executive at National Dispatch Center, Luce Forward and Alltel Systematics and Great American First. She earned her MBA degree from the University of Pepperdine and a bachelor’s degree in information systems a minor in economics from San Diego State University.
Michael Grossman
Board Member
Michael Grossman is Chief Investment Officer at Climate United Fund. Previously, Michael oversaw impact investing at Social Finance where he managed and launched multiple impact-first investment vehicles. Michael created the private credit business at New Island Capital to provide debt capital to the renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, education and financial inclusion sectors in the United States and emerging markets.
Michael was responsible for international lending at Calvert Impact Capital. Michael spent more than a decade at Citibank in Africa where he managed the Senegalese and Tunisian banking operations. He was a Senior Advisor to McKinsey's Social Sector Office and helped launch the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the African Development Bank's Trade Finance business. Michael sits on multiple public and private investment or credit committees.
Michael is a graduate of MIT and Georgetown University. Michael is a Salzburg Global Fellow and a Chevalier in Senegal's National Order of the Lion.
Christine Roberts
Board Member
Christine Roberts serves as the EVP - Chief Operating Officer at Needham Bank, spearheading initiatives that enhance customer relationships and drive strategic growth. With a tenure as President of Citizens Pay, she has honed these competencies, leading to a recognized position among the Most Influential Women in Payments in 2023 and Most Powerful Women in Banking - Top Teams 2024.
Under her leadership, Citizens Pay partnered with top retailers across home furnishing, travel, healthcare, and electronics to drive customer loyalty and increase sales. Citizens Pay won “Best BNPL” from Tearsheet’s 2022 Power of Payments Awards and was recognized as “Best Innovation” from the 2022 Banking Tech Awards USA.
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Christine also previously served as the Head of Student Lending at Citizens Pay. A 30-year veteran of the financial services industry, she has held several roles at the company, including sales, branch planning and operations, and product management. Prior to Citizens, she held marketing and product management positions with Bank of America, Fleet Bank, and Fidelity Investments, and she is the former Education Funding Committee Chair for the Consumer Banking Association.
Christine received her Bachelor’s degree from Bentley University and her Master’s from Northwestern University. She was recognized as American Banker’s Most Influential Women in Payments 2023 and American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Banking: Top Teams 2024. She resides in Wayland, MA with her husband and two children.