About Anna

Anna Portnoy, the owner and lead education consultant at Lotus Learning, graduated magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard College 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. After two short years, Anna left the publishing world, but helping others improve their writing, working on college essays, and grappling with important issues continue to be important to her both personally and professionally.

Before starting Lotus Learning, Anna had been working in academia for nearly six years. She served 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. She wanted to build a company that embodied the values she believed in, and thus, in 2010, she decided to harness all that she had learned as an educator to create Lotus Learning.

Since 2008, Anna has provided supplementary educational services to students in both public and private schools throughout the Boston area. An expert tutor herself, Anna has a remarkable ability to identify the underlying difficulties that get in the way of a student’s success and then model targeted tools and strategies that help that student achieve his or her goals. Whether she is preparing a student for the SAT, honing a student’s writing skills, or coaching a student on organizational strategies, Anna’s friendly but rigorous approach helps students maximize their strengths, build skills, grow in confidence, and achieve results.

Lotus Learning has been shaped by her experience and sustained by talented, like-minded educators who share these essential values. Hiring and maintaining talent remains a top priority for Anna. She makes sure that all of her tutors are creatively driven, highly qualified, and possess experience with and sensitivity towards the social and psychological aspects of working with adolescents. All of our tutors are motivated professionals with experience working with students who have specific scholastic and behavioral needs.

Focusing on personalized instruction, now 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. In addition, Anna also consults and partners with organizations; currently, she serves as the College Prep Specialist at the Student Success Jobs Program at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.