TEAM

Sharon Achako
Secretary
Nyakoe, Kenya

Sharon is a overseas employment recruiter based in Kisii County. Following two-year overseas stints in Libya and Iraq as a domestic service specialist, in 2020 she returned to head up the Kisii office of a Nairobi-based employment agency. When the office closed, she decided to continue in the field as a freelancer, recruiting and vetting qualified candidates for other agencies. 

A fluent speaker of Swahili, Kisii, Luo, English, with a good grasp of Arabic to boot, Sharon was a standout high school student and prefect who went on to attend a Vocational & Technical College in Eldoret, Kenya. 

Anthony Hamm
Treasurer
Lanham, Maryland

Anthony has spent his career rooting for his students as they transition from school to work and become productive, responsible adults. After relocating to Maryland from his native of Flint, Michigan, he has spent over 20 years developing career-readiness and youth entrepreneurship programs. Prior to serving in his current role as Career Path Coordinator at The Pathways Schools, he worked with youth as a community support specialist, mentor, site manager, and site leader at the Institute for Family Centered Services, Friendship Public Charter School, Mid-Michigan Leadership Academy, and the Lansing, MI YMCA respectively. 

Anthony holds a BA in Criminal Justice from Michigan State University, where he was a three-time Big Ten Champion and six-time NCAA All-American in track and cross country. He went on to a five-year career as Adidas-sponsored professional athlete. Anthony was inducted into MSU’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2021. He is a NFTE-certified entreprenurship teacher.

Timothy Mitchell
President, Founder & CEO 
Greenbelt, Maryland & Nyakoe, Kenya

Timothy is an award-winning entrepreneurship, job readiness, and financial literacy educator. Before founding YES in Maryland, he founded and directed YES for 15 years in rural Orange, Massachusetts. In the prior 10 years, he co-created social impact and fair trade enterprises, cooperatives, associations, organizations, programs, and projects with and for adults, youth, and children in under-resourced communities in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Kenya, and Zambia. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Governing, and Country Living.

Tim holds a BA with honors in Anthropology and a Master’s and Doctorate (ABD) from the Center for International Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is a Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE)-certified entreprenurship teacher and named a national NFTE Teacher of the Year for 1999. One of the first five NFTE-certified teacher instructors selected and trained by NFTE’s founder, Steve Mariotti, Timothy trained students and teachers for NFTE in Canada, Iowa, Alaska, Massachusetts, and New York. 

Mimi Noorani
Advisor to the CEO
Greenbelt, Maryland

Mimi is a real estate entrepreneur who, with her family, is active in developing community in the Northeast, Washington, DC neighborhood in which she invests. Formerly a longtime non-profit professional, Mimi grew up in Loomis, California where her father, who immigrated from his native Pakistan, founded and operated a building supply business.

Mimi holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.