Tonika Cheek Clayton

Tonika Cheek Clayton is the Managing Partner of the Tools & Services team at NewSchools.Prior to joining NewSchools, Tonika spent 8 years at Amplify and Wireless Generation where she led teams to develop, sell and deliver digital products and services to the K-12 education market. Throughout her tenure at Amplify, Tonika consistently strived to provide high-quality and high-value products, services and support to help educators improve teaching and learning for students. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Solutions Management, guiding Amplify’s core assessment product management and development teams. She also led sales and account management teams to manage and execute complex engagements with multi-state, state, and school district accounts, representing over 600 customer accounts. Before Amplify, Tonika worked as a researcher on Harvard University’s Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) where she consulted the first cohort of urban public school district leaders and co-authored several case studies seeking to identify more effective ways to drive student achievement by strengthening school district management and leadership. Her case study on the New York City Department of Education and case series on Race, Accountability and the Achievement Gap, in particular, are among some of the popular PELP case studies requested by educators. Tonika started her career in marketing and public relations at the National Basketball Association (NBA) where she successfully promoted the NBA Store and NBA All-Star events. She later transitioned to business development and worked to launch the NBA’s Development League in eight cities for the inaugural season. Tonika graduated from Harvard College and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.