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Timothy Knowles is the 10th president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Prior to joining Carnegie, he served as founder and managing partner of the Academy Group, an enterprise designed to reduce economic disparities and prepare extraordinary young people from under-resourced communities for wealth-building, purposeful careers.

Previously, Knowles founded and served as director and chairman of the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute.  Subsequently, he established and led the University of Chicago Urban Labs, which work globally to design, test, and scale policies and programs that are effective, humane, and cost-efficient. While at the University of Chicago Knowles also served as the John Dewey Clinical Professor of Education.

Prior to his work in Chicago, Knowles was the deputy superintendent of the Boston Public Schools and co-directed the Boston Annenberg Challenge, a nationally regarded initiative to improve literacy. He also directed a full-service K–8 school in New York City, was founding director of Teach for America in New York, and a teacher of African history in Botswana.

Knowles has started multiple social sector and commercial organizations, serves as trustee on a range of boards, and writes and speaks widely on leadership, entrepreneurship and the future of education.