Meet Our Team

Rafi has been working in the Jewish education space for over a decade. Prior to coming to ShalomLearning he was the Israel Programs Director with Jewish National Fund, where he worked with schools, synagogues, and college campuses to provide Israel programming and recruit students for Israel trips. Before that he was the Director of Programs at the American Jewish Society for Service, an organization dedicated to creating immersive service-learning and social justice programming for Jewish teens across the United States. Rafi graduated from the University of Rochester with dual degrees in Political Sciences and Middle Eastern Studies. Rafi enjoys rewatching The West Wing and is working to visit all fifty states (current count is 41). He lives in Rockville with his wife Lauren.

Michele is a Jewish educator who has developed and taught various online courses. Prior to her midlife career change, Michele was a Systems Consultant for Ernst and Young and an Account Manager for Automatic Data Processing. Michele has a BA in Computer Science from Brandeis University, an MBA in Accounting from Fordham, and an MA in Jewish Education from The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at The Jewish Theological Seminary.   Michele and her family reside in Metuchen, NJ.

Devin is a serial entrepreneur with more than 30 years in numerous entrepreneurial ventures. He has successfully started and sold four companies and has invested in more than 40 start-ups and early-stage businesses. Currently, Devin is Founder and CEO of Student Playbook. He is active in Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and also founded Campus MD/Access Health Group and Campus Direct. In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, Devin is a dedicated philanthropist: he founded ShalomLearning and The Social Sector of Scaling Up.

Steven is currently the CEO of Reading Plus, an adaptive literacy intervention solution that develops silent reading proficiency and confident, lifelong readers. He recently served as an Executive in Residence for investment firm Avathon Capital. Prior to that he served as the President of Connections Academy, an online schooling company he co-founded and sold to Pearson PLC in 2011. Dr. Guttentag began his career as a classroom teacher and has spent the last 25 years designing and deploying technology-based solutions to improve K–12 education. His academic credentials include a B.A. from the University of Michigan, a M.A. in Teaching and Curriculum from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Policy and Administration from the University of Pennsylvania.

Rabbi Sarah is the founder of the Tasman Center for Jewish Creativity which offers community classes & gatherings, and private spiritual coaching, and life cycle officiation. Rabbi Sarah specializes in leading experiential spirituality and Jewish mindfulness classes, providing opportunities for personal and professional development, and incorporating expressive modalities including writing, yoga, art and ritual. She is a faculty member at The Adas Israel Community Mikvah where she trains mikvah guides in ritual creation and recently co-led the Well Bodies Program in Embodied Judaism. She has taught Jewish mindfulness for Gratz: NEXT, Jewish Federations of North America Changemakers Fellowship, and many congregations and organizations.

Rabbi Sarah was ordained by the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in 2012. She also holds a master of Jewish Education and a certificate of non-profit management. She is a Rabbis Without Borders Fellow and member of the Kenissa: Communities of Meaning network. Previously, Rabbi Sarah was the Interfaith Family/DC Director, serving the needs of interfaith couples and families throughout Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC and has worked at Hillels at The University of Maryland, Yale and MIT.

After 25 years of senior-level executive positions in the corporate, nonprofit, and startup industries, I now dedicate myself to helping others maximize their potential and achieve their goals.

Through executive leadership coaching, I provide others with the tools needed to finally reach that next step in the leadership cycle, I help executives to develop skills that will best help their teams and their company, and I empower groups and individuals with a heightened awareness of solutions and capabilities that were otherwise invisible before. Whatever is your next step in a career or in life – I help you get there.

In my 25 years as a senior-level executive, I had the unique opportunity to mentor and guide those around me as they navigated their own paths from Associate to Executive. Whether it was building a hotel startup from nothing and developing it into a chain of nine hotels with over 750 employees, rescuing a troubled business and turning it back towards success, or working as the Chief Operating Officer for a large nonprofit, I developed a passion for being that trusted advisor who helps individuals, teams, and companies unlock their potential and realize their goals. I now continue this passion as a trained coach, offering my clients customized programs that are tailored to suit a person or organization’s unique needs.