Catherine Breen

Catherine Breen is the Managing Director of Advances in Learning at Harvard, overseeing the University’s online learning strategy and operations for certificate programs. Prior to joining VPAL, Cathy served as the Chief Operating Officer for Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health care systems innovation that is part of Brigham & Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Cathy has also held various senior executive roles within Harvard University for the past two decades. Before arriving at Harvard, Cathy worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC)/World Bank managing privatization projects across multiple regions in Russia. She spent several years in Nizhny Novgorod working on agricultural reform and land privatization under then Governor Boris Nemtsov. Breen is on the Board of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and speaks fluent Russian.