Our Team
Anjana Goli
President & Founder
Mark Cowsert
Director
Jamie Harris
Director
Brenda Ellis
Director
Anjana Goli
President and Founder
Anjana Goli is a high-school sophomore at Stanford Online High School and is passionate about making a difference in the world through her work for the effective altruism community and entrepreneurship. She is the founder of Better Trajectories and runs effective altruism circles with high schoolers internationally.
Brenda Ellis
Director
Brenda has more than 30 years of professional business experience in finance, product strategy & management, operations, regulatory engagement, strategic partnerships and talent development from working for Fortune 500 companies such as Fedex, Ralston Purina, Morgan Stanley and Mastercard International. In her most recent role as Senior Vice President and business owner of Settlement Services at Mastercard, Brenda ran a global operation responsible for the execution of more than $15B of daily domestic and cross-border payments to approximately 2,200 financial institution customers resident in 200+ countries. She was the recipient of multiple awards from the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Counsel and was recognized by the Mastercard Women’s Leadership Network as an exemplary influential leader.
Brenda holds a B.S. Accounting from Christian Brothers University in Memphis, TN and a Masters of Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She earned the designation of Certified Treasury Professional and Certified Information System Auditor.
Brenda retired from Mastercard in December 2022. She has since launched a real estate investment company, Fresh Beginning Properties, LLC, where she will focus on providing moderate to low income families and small businesses a path to property ownership.
Brenda resides in Ballwin, MO. She has a daughter and a son and 2 grandchildren and all 4 are the joy of her life! She loves to travel, drink good wine, and listen to music. She’s passionate about giving back and she regularly volunteers/contributes to several charities.
Mark Cowsert
Director
Mark Cowsert is the Associate Director of Policy and Partnerships for the Missouri AfterSchool Network (MASN). With nearly 40 years of work experience in youth development, higher education administration, vocational ministry and advancement, Mark is passionate about helping students discover and pursue their future hopes and dreams. After leading a three site (K-12) 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) afterschool program focused on college and career readiness, Mark came to MASN to oversee the Career Awareness and Post-Secondary Access (CAPSA) and Youth Entrepreneurship initiatives as well as helping develop partnerships with MASN’s STEM initiative called the Million Girls Moonshot. These initiatives provide resources and programming opportunities to before/afterschool and summer enrichment programs across Missouri.
In addition to his partnership work, Mark has also been active in championing afterschool through policy advocacy and is an Afterschool Alliance Ambassador Emeritus, working to bring awareness and support for afterschool programs to local, state, and federal policymakers. His desire to build collaborative coalitions to support the 130,000 K-12 school age students in afterschool programs across the Show Me State is what gives him energy each and every day.
When not doing the great work of MASN, Mark loves following his beloved Mizzou Tigers, Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Blues as well as being the husband to his sweetheart of 41 years, Valorie, the dad to four amazing adult children and the “PopPop” to the three best grandchildren in the world!
Jamie Harris
Director
After graduating with a first-class degree in history from the University of Oxford, Jamie secured a distinction in his Postgraduate Certificate of Education and taught for several years at a Sixth Form college. He then became a researcher at the think tank Sentience Institute and co-founded Animal Advocacy Careers, a nonprofit providing careers advice to individuals hoping to make a positive impact.
He is currently Managing Director of Leaf which supports 16-18 year olds to work out how they can best help others and act on their findings.