Kirby is the Director of Venture Development at the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, where she works to identify new, high-leverage philanthropic opportunities and helps manage the Foundation’s Venture Development portfolio. She has expertise helping organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors address their most critical strategic challenges. Before joining the Foundation, Kirby worked as a management consultant in Bain & Company’s Chicago and Johannesburg offices, served as a fellow at the Civic Consulting Alliance in Chicago, and was an analyst focused on higher education and technology issues at Ithaka Strategy and Research. She has also worked as a project manager on a Baltimore-based education reform project, and as a language arts teacher at the American School of Sao Paulo.

Kirby holds a master’s of business administration and a master’s of public policy from the University of Michigan. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Yale University.