Kelly Amis

Kelly Amis is the founder and president of Loudspeaker Films, an independent film production company focused on social justice issues. Its signature project is TEACHED, an innovative short film series and multimedia project that examines continuing inequality in the American public education system, especially as it impacts urban minority youth. After graduating from Georgetown University, Kelly taught fourth and fifth grades in South Central, Los Angeles as a charter corps member of Teach for America. This experience inspired her to earn a master's degree in Education Policy Analysis from Stanford University and to research school governance as a Fulbright Scholar at the Australian Council for Educational Research. Kelly worked as a legislative aide to United States Senator Dianne Feinstein—handling education, labor and foreign policy issues—and for a variety of non-profit organizations including the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, the Sallie Mae Fund and Fight for Children, where she initiated a “three-sector strategy” to help enact the federal law that created the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. She also served as the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Cesar Chavez Charter School for Public Policy, helping Founder & CEO Irasema Salcido transform the original small school into a system of three all with new, high-tech facilities. Kelly was instrumental in designing and launching one of the nation’s first charter school incubators (in Dayton, Ohio) as well as Building Hope, a charter school facilities fund in Washington, DC. She is co-author of Making it Count: A Guide to High-Impact Education Philanthropy and numerous articles. In 2013, Amis was awarded the Teach for America Social Innovation Award for her work on TEACHED, her first film project. A long-time volunteer mentor and tutor, including through Project Champ at Children's National Medical Center, Kelly is especially proud of her "l'il girl" Janae (pictured here at her high school graduation), who now attends college near Washington, DC.