Mark Brown

As Executive Director of Student Freedom Initiative (SFI), Mark is accountable to the Board of Directors for leadership, guidance and direction, business development, and strategic communications for SFI. He previously served as the Chief Operating Officer for Federal Student Aid (FSA) at the Department of Education. In this role, Brown had statutory authority for all the nation’s Title IV (Pell Grants, Work-study, Student Loans) funding for 600,000 students and a total lending portfolio of $1.7 trillion, and 6,000 partner institutions around the country.

During his time at FSA, Brown oversaw the total digitization of financial services for students, parents, and borrowers. In addition, faced with a pandemic, Brown oversaw the transformation of over 25 million borrowers from active to forbearance status which temporarily eliminated payments for most students, parents, and borrowers across the country.

Brown received his education from the National Defense University (Master of National Security Strategy), Air Command & Staff College (Master of Strategic Studies), Troy State University (Master of Public Administration), and Tuskegee University (Accounting).