Brett joined the SAIS team in July 2024, having most recently served as the chief executive officer at The Mount Vernon School in Atlanta. Since joining SAIS, he has overseen the launch of the Governance Health Index; enhanced data and benchmarking, including monthly pulse surveys and the Meridian dashboard; overseen sector-wide research projects including a focus on early-career independent school educators and a faculty motivation and engagement survey’ and launched the SAIS Blueprint Sprint as a means of supporting schools in turning dreams into actionable strategy.
During his tenure with Mount Vernon, the school experienced exponential growth in enrollment and gained a national reputation for innovation in education. Illustrating this, Mount Vernon’s upper school launched a school-within-a-school model, the Innovation Diploma, whose students have served as consultants for Delta, Mercedes, AT&T, Porsche, and the National Center for Civil & Human Rights. In 2012, Brett started an R&D lab known as Mount Vernon Ventures, serving educational communities throughout the world. Over the past decade, Ventures has welcomed more than 1,000 teachers and administrators to education visitation days, workshops, and summer conferences. He also founded Mount Vernon Online, an online high school that enrolled its first cohort of students in August 2022.
The transformational story at Mount Vernon was recognized in 2021 by NBOA when Brett received the inaugural Jeffrey Shields Innovation in Operations Award. Additionally, he was highlighted by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of the 2017 Most Admired CEOs in the education category. Prior to arriving at Mount Vernon, Brett served as head of school at Second Baptist School in Houston, TX, where he began his teaching career and deepened his expertise as division head, dean, and development director.
