Carolyn Acker was the founding CEO of Pathways to Education Canada, a public foundation dedicated to helping youth in low-income communities graduate from high school and successfully transition into post-secondary education. Five years after beginning Pathways to Education Canada, the drop-out rate fell from 56% to 13% and post-secondary attendance increased from 20% to 83%. Since then, Pathways has grown serving over 8,000 students and alumni in 17 communities across Canada successfully decreasing secondary school drop-out rates by 70% and increasing post secondary participation by 300%.