Board of Directors

Hemispheres Academy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Virginia, USA, governed by a Board of Directors.

  • Megan Swann, Board President

    For more than 20 years, Megan Swann built Boards, trained Boards and sat on Boards of Directors for corporations, foundations, institutions and international organizations. Among them are school boards, for which she writes school board policies, drafts by laws and manuals, and authors accreditation reports, among other things. Her clients include public, private, international and charter schools. She holds a BA from Boston College, and two Masters of Business and Policy from the Università degli Studi di Firenze. She also has certifications in Negotiation Strategies from Yale and in Educational Policy Development from Boston College. For Megan, hard work, integrity and kindness are ways of achieving a success that lasts and that will earn respect. She is the proud mother of 4 kids, presently living in Mexico City, but departing soon for Costa Rica.

  • Chris Scott, Treasurer

    Chris Scott is the Director of Finance for Ascent Classical Academies, a charter school network based in Colorado.

    Prior to joining Ascent, Chris worked for over six years as a financial consultant to more than 30 charter schools as a Client Account Executive for G&G Consulting Group, a Colorado-based financial services provider for charter schools and nonprofits. Chris advised school administrators and boards in the areas of budget modeling and forecasting, federal grant management, financial reporting, and the implementation of sound financial policies and procedures. Earlier, he worked for five years as a member of the administrative team opening a charter school in Denver, providing operational management as a Dean of Students.

    Chris graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and worked in business management for 8 years before moving to the public sector. He volunteers as a Director for the City of Lakewood’s Budget and Audit Board and was a past member of the Finance Committee of the public charter school attended by his children. Chris, his wife, and his children reside in Lakewood, CO and are steadfast advocates of school choice.

  • Misti Freeland, Board Secretary

    Misti Freeland is the Associate Director of Risk & Litigation Consulting for an international risk management firm based in Northern Virginia, where she and her team advise clients on risk mitigation and liability. She consults on expert witness testimony, contracts negotiation, policies and procedures, and litigation materials for premises liability claims. Most of her clients are Top 100 law firms and Fortune 500 companies in the restaurant, retail, hospitality, and multi-family housing industries.  Her particular interest is helping clients objectively evaluate their liability risks, while analyzing complex litigation scenarios and keeping all stakeholders happy.

    She has 15 years of experience as a corporate governance and litigation paralegal in both plaintiff and defense firms where she directed the corporate governance and licensing requirements for over 100 corporate clients both in the US and internationally. Her litigation career was marked by high profile, complex litigation. 

    Misti has a graduate certificate in Enterprise Risk Management from Boston University and will complete her MS-ERM in July of 2023. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations with a dual bachelor’s in Human Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She has research interests in reputational risk, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives, and how those interplay with liability and negligence. 

    Misti is currently based in Kampala, Uganda, where she is co-chairperson on the board of the Mission Kampala Community Association, a non-profit employee association dedicated to the families and officers serving at the U.S. Mission to Kampala, Uganda. She is a mother of two middle years boys, a lover of the outdoors, and an avid reader.