Anna Portnoy, BA
Anna Portnoy, the owner and lead education consultant at Lotus Learning, graduated from Buckingham Browne and Nichols School and went on to attend Harvard College where she graduated magna cum laude with highest honors in 2000. She began her career in writing and editing, first as the Publishing Director of the Let’s Go travel guides, then as an editor for a college essay editing service, and finally, as a co-editor of Global Values 101, a book of interviews in which renowned authors and activists share their ideas on how to live as engaged citizens of the world. Anna then spent several years as a high school English teacher, harnessing her own love of the subject matter to engage and inspire students of all abilities and learning profiles.
Though she loved teaching, her experience in the classroom taught her about the limitations of a one-size-fits-all approach to education. Over and over again, Anna saw that supplementing classroom activity with individualized tutoring
and academic coaching had profound effects on students' academic and overall development. In 2010 she harnessed all that she had learned as an educator to create Lotus Learning, a company that embodied the values she believed in.Focusing on personalized instruction, Anna has a cadre of educators offering academic subject tutoring, executive function coaching, college admissions assistance, and standardized test preparation. Anna’s insistence on excellence has kept the team intentionally small but extraordinarily talented. Moreover, the size of Lotus Learning has allowed her to create and sustain meaningful relationships with educators and families alike. Every student’s progress is carefully monitored, and communication among Anna, her team, and her clients is ongoing.
Since 2008, Anna has provided supplementary educational services to students in both public and private schools throughout the Boston area. Anna also consults and partners with organizations, including those that provide educational services to students from diverse backgrounds; currently, she serves as the College Prep Specialist at the Student Success Jobs Program at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
