Susan Appel is the Founding CEO of Adira Reads and Executive Director of The Indy Learning Team (TILT), a literacy nonprofit she co-founded in 2015. She also serves as Co-Majority Owner and Board Member of Gregory and Appel Insurance. Susan's path to literacy advocacy began personally — shaped by three generations of dyslexia in her family and her own diagnosis in fourth grade. When her daughter faced the same systemic barriers years later, Susan channeled that experience into action. With a marketing and PR background spanning Harley-Davidson, Kraft Foods, and American Airlines, she built TILT to deliver free, high-quality reading intervention. Recognizing that traditional models couldn't scale, she co-founded Adira Reads — an AI-powered literacy platform — to bring structured, personalized instruction to every child who needs it.