Elizabeth Orme

As CEO and Founder, Elizabeth Orme leads Creatively Focused's strategic growth and vision of supporting the career success and retention of special educators. Her background as a researcher, special education teacher, and district special education director fuels her work to make sure every special educator feels their job can be a career. Creatively Focused created axis3, a national, web-based platform providing special educators with intentional, on demand support. Elizabeth was part of the Lunar Startups Accelerator, which uplifts underrepresented business owners, particularly women, nonbinary people, and people of color. Creatively Focused was named a Top 20 Startup to Watch and Startup on Fire by MinneInno. Elizabeth was recently a featured guest on Edmentum's September 2022 Podcast: Realizing the Promise of Special Education. Recent presentations have included: Reconsidering How to Keep Teachers in the Field, and Scaling in EdTech By Listening: A Work Session to Evaluate Your Attention to Educator Voices. Research has led Elizabeth to projects with the University of Kansas, and published articles with the University of Chicago's Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center. Elizabeth holds an Education Specialist degree with Principal and Special Education Director licensure at the University of St. Thomas, a Masters in Elementary and Special Education from DePaul University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Iowa.