Molly Blankenship is Executive Director of Chattanooga 2.0, the Cradle-through-Career partnership of Chattanooga and Hamilton County. Founded in 2015 with a goal to transform education and workforce development outcomes, Chattanooga 2.0 is a cross-sector partnership led by stakeholders representing community, business, nonprofit, public and educational institutions. 

Working toward a shared vision and with a focus on systems change, Chattanooga 2.0 aligns resources and strategic focus along the cradle-through-career educational pathway to improve outcomes for over 65,000 learners including pre-K-12 and higher education students. Results are measured along each step of the continuum, from pre-K to higher education and into the workforce. Molly’s ultimate goal is to improve economic opportunity and quality of life in Chattanooga and Hamilton County—and she firmly believes education attainment is the first step.

Under Molly’s leadership, Chattanooga 2.0 was the central convener and coordinator of emergency response to COVID-19’s impacts on children and families. During her tenure, Chattanooga 2.0 also helped expand access to high quality early learning programs for vulnerable families, helped double the turnout rates for local school board elections, and is currently implementing solutions to improve post-secondary attainment rates for high school students who graduate from Chattanooga and Hamilton County’s lowest performing schools.

A skilled systems leader and an equity champion, Molly has a fire in her belly for stimulating community progress, for changing the odds for students. She is determined to work herself out of a job, believing that institutions and systems can and should enable the success of every student. Molly is a Tennessee native, a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, and spends her free time playing pretend with her daughter, Margot, a first grader in Hamilton County Schools.