Dr. Matt Gianneschi is the chief operating officer and chief of staff at Colorado Mountain College, a comprehensive, multi-campus community college in Colorado’s central Rocky Mountain region. Prior to joining CMC, Dr. Gianneschi served as vice president of policy and programs at the Education Commission of the States, a national, nonpartisan education policy nonprofit, work that was informed by his time as a senior officer in state government. Dr. Gianneschi was the deputy executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education from 2011 to 2013, senior education advisor to Governor Bill Ritter from 2007 to 2009, and chief academic officer for the Colorado Department of Higher Education from 2004 to 2007. In between his work at the state level, Dr. Gianneschi was the vice president of student services at the Community College of Aurora, a large, urban community college in the Denver metro region.
Most of Dr. Gianneschi’s early career was spent in student access and support services. He was an admission officer for the University of Denver and the University of Puget Sound, as well as the director of operations for the Daniels College Prep and Scholarship Program in the Daniels Fund, the Rocky Mountain region’s largest college access and scholarship program. Dr. Gianneschi has led numerous innovation initiatives funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Ford Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, and Intel.
Dr. Gianneschi is an alumnus of the Denver Public Schools and received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Denver and a Doctor of Philosophy from the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona. Dr. Gianneschi has served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver and the Community College of Aurora and has served on graduate committees at Colorado State University, Regis University, and the University of Colorado. He has served in advisory roles for the Denver Scholarship Foundation, the Aspen Community Foundation, and the Colorado Northwest Council of Governments. In 2011, Dr. Gianneschi was awarded a Marshall Memorial Fellowship from the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
