Staff

Radha Mohan

Executive Director

Radha Mohan, a Senior Policy Advisor and Counsel at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, designs legislative and regulatory strategies in areas related to tax, health care, education and immigration for a diverse set of clients that includes public and private corporations, trade associations, coalitions, health insurers and nonprofits.

Radha focuses on representing clients' interests before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Congress and has experience working with matters involving the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee. Radha is also an attorney with an L.L.M. in tax law.

Radha’s career has also provided her with expertise in issues related to incentivizing worker retraining and education and redesigning benefits for gig-economy workers. She has drafted policy solutions related to worker reclassification, tax incentives for worker training, new benefits models for freelance workers and student debt reduction.

Sage Schaftel

Assistant Executive Director

Sage Schaftel serves as Assistant Executive Director of the Early Care and Education Consortium. She helps develop the organization’s long-term strategic plan, and works closely with ECEC leadership to drive federal and state strategies across the finish line.

Since joining the organization, Sage has worked to foster relationships between child care providers and political stakeholders, from members of Congress and administration officials to grassroots and grasstops leaders. As ECEC grows, Sage remains dedicated to keeping members informed of the latest political developments in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. When an issue or opportunity is identified requiring engagement in a local, state or federal policy arena, Sage works quickly to mobilize the organization and mount an appropriate response. She drafts comments letters and op-eds articulating ECEC’s position and develops talking points and messaging materials that present a unified voice.

In addition to her work for ECEC, Sage serves as a Policy Advisor in the government relations department of law and lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. She provides the firm’s health care, labor, tax and education clients with insightful research and analysis, project management, and legislative and regulatory tracking. Prior to joining Brownstein, Sage spent two years working with former Governor Hickenlooper’s Legal Counsel and Office of Boards and Commissions and served as a policy intern at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition while completing her Master’s in Public Policy at Georgetown University.

Elsa Jacobsen

Director of State Policy and Government Relations

Elsa Jacobsen serves as one of ECEC’s two directors of state policy and government relations. In this role, she leads ECEC’s policy and advocacy efforts in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington. Jacobsen previously served as director of public policy at Child360, an early learning non-profit in Los Angeles. In this position she developed and executed strategies to advance policies at the local, state and federal levels that increased access to high-quality early education and supported the early childhood workforce. She also worked side by side with child advocacy organizations, direct service providers and business organizations on policy and advocacy efforts, which helped secure thousands of new child care and preschool spaces for California’s children and raise reimbursement rates for child care providers. In addition, she conducted original research that informed policy and that highlighted, for legislators, the perspectives of both teachers and child care providers. Prior to her work at Child360, Jacobsen served as a law clerk with Young, Minney & Corr, LLP where she worked on a host of education issues for over 75 charter school clients. She also served an Education Pioneers Fellowship with the California Charter Schools Association and a Bing Public Service Fellowship in the office of the late Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA). Jacobsen earned a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in education policy analysis and evaluation from Stanford University, and a law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School.

Kathlyn McHenry

Director of State Policy and Government Relations

Kathlyn McHenry serves as one of ECEC’s two directors of state policy and government relations. In this role, she leads ECEC’s policy and advocacy efforts in Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, and Arizona. Prior to joining ECEC, McHenry served as a senior policy analyst with the Texas Workforce Commission's Child Care and Early Learning Division where she oversaw implementation of a $3.5 billion child care stabilization grant and other state-led initiatives. She simultaneously developed and reviewed policy approaches and ensured the state was aligned with federal law and regulation. This followed her time as an Associate Director at the Bipartisan Policy Center's Early Childhood Initiative, where she developed and delivered strategic approaches to government affairs, including establishing visibility and credibility of the Initiative with Congress and the administration; conducted research; and authored numerous reports, blogs, and op-eds. Kathlyn also spent several years at the Committee on Education and Workforce in the U.S. House of Representatives, working on programs including CCDBG, Head Start, and Preschool Development Grants. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Washington.