Woo hoo, it is Friday! The Snoop is ready for a weekend. How about you? But first, you know the drill: check out this week’s scoops!
New roles for colleagues and friends….
PAPERbasket, the new ed tech ROI startup is making waves as schools and companies start to hear of its solution. With its first customers launched, the patent-pending solution can measure how much active and inactive time students and teachers are using software and digital resources at school, at home, or anywhere in between. Schools can now determine how much value they are actually getting from any subscription, down to the exact dollar amount.
With a team of industry veterans already onboard, joining its team of advisors is the wonderful Liz Crawford, Intel‘s global education strategist. Liz has been at Intel over five years, driving their social media and Intel’s Education Visionaries program to name a few. Prior, the former first grade teacher held senior marketing roles with Gateway and Hewlett Packard.
Liz joins a team of well-respected industry veterans, including Ann McMullan, Kathy Hurley, Tom Fitzgerald, and Tom Greaves, all announced this summer.
PAPERbasket is sold via local resellers across U.S. and Canada, as it gives them real differentiation in their 1:1 services to local schools. You can learn more about PAPERbasket by visiting them online and send warm wishes to Liz and the entire team by emailing their president, Mark Onderko at mark@paperbasket.com.
Jessie Woolley-Wilson, Chair, President and CEO of DreamBox Learning, a world-leader in innovative educational math solutions, has been elected to Rosetta Stone‘s Board of Directors.
Driven by a belief that all children need and deserve high-quality learning opportunities, Jessie is a seasoned executive who has worked in the education technology space for nearly 20 years to support school and district leaders and improve learning and life outcomes for K-12 students. Prior to joining DreamBox, she served as president of Blackboard’s K-12 Group and president of LeapFrog School House, the K-12 division of LeapFrog Enterprises. She has also served in positions of leadership at collegeboard.com, the interactive division of the College Board, and at Kaplan, a leading test preparation company in the U.S.
Jessie currently serves on the boards of several educational organizations, including the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (INACOL), the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Western Governors University Board of Trustees, and Islandwood. She is also on the board of Boeing Employees Credit Union. She has been a featured speaker at international events including TEDx Rainer, SXSWedu, and DENT, as well as a moderator for the Aspen Institute.
Jessie holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. She is also a 2007 Henry Crown Fellow. She is a two-time recipient of EdTech Digest‘s EdTech Leadership Award for her work in transformative innovation in education. Forbes placed her on its “Impact 15” list for being a disruptor in education, and Seattle Business Magazine awarded her the 2015 Executive Excellence Award in the CEO of the Year category. The Puget Sound Business Journal honored her as a “Woman of Influence,” and 425 Magazinenamed her as one of eight “Unstoppable Eastside Women” for having a clear focus on the greater good. The New York Times has also profiled Jessie and her leadership style in their Corner Office column.
Join me in congratulating Jessie on her newest role!
Venrock has announced that Tom Willerer will be joining the firm as Partner. Based in the Palo Alto office, Tom will focus on early stage consumer technology.
Previously, Tom was the Chief Product Officer at Coursera, where he was employee number 50 and established and scaled up the product management and design teams. In addition, he led engineering, operations, and analytics. During his tenure, Tom helped the company build out a world-class product and launched four fully accredited online degrees, identified a business model that resulted in a 24x increase in quarterly revenue, built a world-class product organization and web-sales channel, and set the culture.
Prior to Coursera, Tom spent six years at Netflix, Inc., where he became one of the company’s most highly regarded leaders in his role as Vice President of Product Innovation. Tom co-led the product management team at Netflix and was responsible for setting the vision and managing the teams responsible for Product Marketing, Messaging, Social, and Individual Profiles. Among his accomplishments during his time at the company, Tom pioneered ways for members to exchange recommendations with friends and helped Netflix grow from 8 million U.S.-only subscribers to 40 million subscribers in 41 countries.
Tom holds a business degree from Indiana University, where he was a pitcher on the varsity baseball team, and received his Master’s in New Media Studies from DePaul University.
Congratulations to Tom on his new role!
I heard from Josh Morgan this week. Josh has been at Edelman for the past six years as a Senior Vice President, largely working with universities. But he is now back in the K-12 education technology space and has joined PowerSchool as Senior Director Corporate Communications.
Congratulations to Josh on joining the PowerSchool team!
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced a number of changes to its executive team this week, with a slate of new talent and the promotion of internal leaders to support its goal of improving learning outcomes for all students.
Reporting directly to Jack Lynch, President and CEO, the following executives will serve leading roles:
- Jim O’Neill, EVP and General Manager, Core Curriculum – Joining most recently from Achieve3000, Jim has spent his career in the K-12 education space, including roles at HMH, Pearson, and National Geographic. He brings deep experience in educational technology, product development, strategy, marketing, and sales support to the newly created position of EVP and GM, Core Curriculum, where he will focus on enhancing HMH’s basal core business.
- Matthew Mugo Fields, EVP and General Manager, Supplemental Curriculum – In this new role, Matthew will manage the development and growth of HMH’s supplemental curriculum portfolio, which includes intervention and assessment offerings. He previously worked at McGraw-Hill Education, overseeing strategy, operations, marketing, and product development for a suite of adaptive learning software solutions; he is also founder of education technology start-ups Redbird Advanced Learning and GiftedandTalented.com.
- Rose Else-Mitchell, EVP and Chief Learning Officer – Rose, who joined HMH in 2015 with the Company’s acquisition of Scholastic’s EdTech Business as head of product, will focus on the efficacy of HMH’s programs and services to drive student outcomes. This newly created position expands her responsibilities as leader of HMH’s Professional Services business to include oversight of Learning Science, Research, Data Analytics, User Experience, and HMH’s Teaching and Learning Platforms.
- Amy Dunkin, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer – Amy has been named Chief Marketing Officer and will oversee product marketing, field marketing, market research, pricing, an in-house creative agency, communications, and digital and demand generation teams. She is tasked with ensuring HMH has a best-in-class, modern, agile marketing organization in order to increase brand awareness and prioritize customer needs. She joined HMH in 2015 during the Scholastic EdTech acquisition and previously worked at Time Inc. and Forbes.
- Alejandro Reyes, SVP and Chief People Officer – Alejandro joins HMH from Laureate Education, where he served as the Chief Talent and Organization Development Officer, responsible for building the talent infrastructure for the company’s recent growth. He previously held significant tenures at both Dell and Motorola. At HMH, he will focus on enabling success for the employee community as a whole, including talent development and management.
- Trish Torizzo, SVP and Chief Information Officer – Trish has joined the team as Chief Information Officer and will focus on leveraging the Company’s enterprise software solutions to streamline all internal operations and improve the customer experience. She has previously held IT leadership positions at Charles River Laboratories, National Grid, and Boston Scientific and brings extensive experience in large scale IT and business transformation and integration initiatives.
- Vicki Boyd, EVP and General Manager, Heinemann – Vicki, who has been with the company since 2003, has been promoted to EVP and General Manager of Heinemann, HMH’s professional development publishing arm. Under her leadership, Heinemann will continue its mission of developing and growing teachers and continue striving toward an unprecedented run of 12 straight years of growth.
Congratulations to each of these HMH execs in their new roles!
And Lloyd “Buzz” Waterhouse has been appointed interim president and chief executive officer for McGraw-Hill Education. He succeeds David Levin, who is leaving the company.
Buzz previously served as the president and CEO of McGraw-Hill Education from June of 2012 until April of 2014. He was responsible for the successful separation of McGraw-Hill Education from McGraw-Hill Financial, now S&P Global, setting up the new company and overseeing its subsequent sale to Apollo Global Management. He also led the company through its first year of independence in which many significant operational and financial milestones were achieved.
Buzz was also the CEO of Harcourt Education, a provider of instructional materials, e-learning, and testing services for the global education market. Previously, he was CEO and chairman of The Reynolds & Reynolds Company, the leading provider of automotive retailing solutions.
Before Reynolds, Buzz held numerous roles at IBM. He led their strategy and business development functions during Lou Gerstner’s tenure and subsequent turn-around, launched IBM Global Services, and was president of Asia Pacific Services Corporation. He serves on the boards of McGraw-Hill Education, JDA, Sparta, Instructure, and Penn State’s Smeal College of Business.
Congratulations to Buzz on his new role!
Kudos
Eduardo Soto, strategic relationships consultant for Curriculum Associates and a retired educator, has been recognized by the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS) with its 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award. Nominated by the ALAS Board of Directors, Eduardo was chosen as the recipient of this esteemed award for his continued impact on the ALAS organization and its mission.
Eduardo launched the local affiliate ALAS de Nuevo Mexico after the national ALAS organization was founded in 2003. He was then nominated and served on the ALAS executive board for six years, in which time he supported ALAS and its growth in numerous ways, including supporting the growing network of ALAS state affiliates. Most recently, his support resulted in the formation of ALAS de Tennessee.
In addition to his involvement with ALAS, Eduardo has held many educator positions throughout his 35-year career with Albuquerque Public Schools in New Mexico, including as an ESL, bilingual social studies, and special education teacher, an assistant principal, and principal. As principal of Rio Grande High School, he was instrumental in issuing some of the first bilingual/bi-literacy seals in the state of New Mexico.
In 2007, he was named the associate superintendent for secondary education with the district and held the position until his retirement in 2014. He then joined the Curriculum Associates team in 2015, where he works strategically with districts throughout the region.
Congratulations to Eduardo on this much-deserved recognition!
That’s a wrap for this week, friends. The Snoop is happy to report she will have the younger grandkids for a sleepover this weekend. Do you see me smiling? Go spend time doing something that makes you smile, and I will see you back here next week. Till then….Vicki, the Snoop
[Send me your scoops at bighamv@aol.com and be sure to follow me on Twitter @Snoops4Scoops #SheSnoops]
