Welcome to October, everyone. The changing season and promise of cooler weather seems to give everyone a lift. We have experienced another terribly sad week and another terribly devastating event. I see that today is World Smile Day. Sometimes receiving a smile from someone else, even a stranger, or giving one to another person can make a great difference in your day. World Smile Day encourages you to take action to bring a few more smiles into the world. Read on to learn a little more about this day and, of course, to get this week’s scoops!
If you read about the history of this day, it actually started with a man named Harvey Ball. You may not know his name, but he is the creator of the smiley face emoji. He later created World Smile Day, a day devoted to the spreading of simple joy and love to everyone, regardless of race, gender, or geographic location.
New roles for colleagues and friends….
Cindy Yates has joined IO Education, a market leader in helping educators use data to improve student outcomes, as Chief Revenue Officer. And Doug Mesecar has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, while Hardin Daniel has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Student Achievement Solutions.
Cindy joins IO Education with more than 20 years of education technology sales experience at companies including Blackboard, Schoolwires, and Pearson. As Chief Revenue Officer, she will join an expanding leadership team to accelerate IO Education’s sales efforts.
In his new role as Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, Doug will oversee IO Education’s professional growth solutions including Educator Effectiveness, Professional Learning (CaseNEX), and Principal Leadership (VAL-ED). He will also help inform and direct IO’s strategic business direction across all products and functions. Before joining IO Education in 2015, Doug worked on Capitol Hill, at the U.S. Department of Education, Scholastic Education, and Sylvan Learning.
As Senior Vice President of Student Achievement Solutions, Hardin will lead IO’s Student Assessment, Early Literacy and IO Insights product lines. He previously worked at Discovery Education and LongLeaf Solutions before its acquisition by IO Education in 2015.
Join me in congratulating Cindy, Doug, and Hardin on their new roles at IO Education!
Cambium Learning® Group, a leading educational solutions and services company committed to helping all students reach their full potential, has named Aaron Ingold President of its Voyager Sopris Learning® business unit. He succeeds Jeffrey A. Elliott, who is departing the Company to pursue other career interests.
Most recently, Aaron was Senior Vice President of Sales of Voyager Sopris Learning. He brings a wealth of experience in education technology sales, having served as a Field Executive with ProQuest Information and Learning, as the Western Regional Manager for ExploreLearning®, and the National Sales Director for Kurzweil Education®.
Congratulations to Aaron on his new role at Cambium Learning Group!
Sara Kloek has joined the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) as Director of Education Policy, Programs, and Student Privacy. Sara was most recently the Senior Privacy and Technology Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education, reporting to Michael Hawes and Kathleen Styles in the Office of the Chief Privacy Officer. There she was focused on educational technology and privacy issues. Much of her time there was spent leading interagency discussions and subsequent negotiations with the Federal Trade Commission on joint guidance related to COPPA and FERPA. She also provided technical assistance to states, districts, schools, and companies through ED’s Privacy Technical Assistance Center.
Prior to ED, Sara worked at a trade association in government affairs focusing on tech privacy issues such as the most recent COPPA update and building a self-regulatory program for mobile app companies. She also worked on the Hill for four years covering education policy and related appropriations on the House side. Before moving to DC, she worked on political campaigns in her home state of Minnesota.
Congratulations to Sara on joining the team at SIIA!
Former director of marketing at Lego Education, Ken Yanhs, has joined automated market research tech company ZappiStore as Executive Vice President of Marketing, replacing Christophe Ovaere, who left ZappiStore early this year to join home improvement service, Opun, as Chief Marketing Officer.
Based in Boston, Ken will build ZappiStore’s marketing strategy and manage the marketing team in its London headquarters, while also working closely with the sales and technology teams in Chicago, Portland, Cape Town, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Hamburg, Paris, and Singapore. He will help ZappiStore develop partnerships with agencies such as Kantar Millward Brown and System1 Research.
As well as working at Lego, Ken has held leadership roles at EF and Bain & Company.
I had the privilege of working with Ken this year as he provided program input as one of our EdNET 2017 Adivsory Board members. Join me in congratulating him on this exciting new position!
Anil Hemrajani has been named the new VP Innovation at K12 Inc. Anil is the CEO & Founder of Big Universe Learning, where he has been responsible for the vision, strategy, and operation of the company, and also an angel investor.
Anil began his information technology career, helping companies develop custom enterprise software with emerging technologies. In 1997, he founded a successful IT solutions company, which he sold in 2003. He established an award-winning online community for software programmers that grew to 100,000 registered members.
The author of a 360-page software technology book (available in four languages), Anil has published dozens of articles in popular magazines, won multiple industry awards, been nominated for a Computerworld-Smithsonian Award, and given talks to thousands of developers in four continents.
A world traveler, Anil realizes our planet is a small one, and although people look and act differently, we all have the same basic needs. He believes that higher literacy increases global awareness in children and considers beautiful picture books one way to inspire children to read, write, and learn more. It’s his travels, a high regard for education, and his fascination with children’s books that sparked the creation of BigUniverse.com.
Anil now brings his talents to K12 Inc. Join me in congratulating him and wishing him every continued success!
Jenny Schumacher has joined Underscore Creative as Chief Operating Officer. She comes to the boutique marketing and advertising firm from Agile Education Marketing, where she was Vice President, Sales & Marketing. I know for a fact that Jenny and Co-Founder & Marketing Director Emily Garner Sumner will love working closely together and will be an amazing team!
Congratulations, Jenny, on your new role!
Kudos!
Hezel Associates, a custom evaluation, research, and planning firm specializing in education, is clebrating its 30th anniversary in business with local clients, vendors, professional colleagues, vendors, and staff. Since 1987, Hezel Associates has embraced its mission to serve its clients with intelligence, experience, and insight that enables them to succeed in creating, managing, and improving learning initiatives.
Join me in sending warm congratulations to Richard Hezel, Founder & Chairman, and his team on their impressive work and this significant milestone. Kudos to you all!
Join the snoop
The Snoop is looking forward to chatting with Larry Jacobs, Education Talk Radio, next week as we discuss a recap of EdNET 2017. Joining me will be Maurice Bakley, Chief Revenue Officer for EdWeek Market Brief, and Polly Stansell, SVP, Product Development for Voyager Sopris Learning. They will be providing some key take-aways from this year’s conference.
The program is scheduled for October 12th at 10:30 ET. At the time of show, anyone can listen on Education Talk Radio. The show will then be archived on that site as well as on I-tunes here. Please join us!
Now, as you head out to that weekend, keep your eyes open for someone who could use your smile. Spread a little joy wherever you can. The Snoop is looking forward to the opening of soccer season for the two youngest grandkids and keeping them a couple of days while their parents enjoy an anniversary trip. Win, win!! Enjoy your weekend, friends! Till next week….Vicki, the Snoop
[Send me your scoops at bighamv@aol.com and be sure to follow me on Twitter @Snoops4Scoops #SheSnoops]
