Edtech Insiders

Amy Bevilacqua is a Managing Partner of Green Street Impact Partners. With over 30 years of experience at the intersection of the education, media and technology sectors, she has an abiding passion for advancing innovation and scaling education companies that deliver on learner-centered missions. Amy believes in impact investing in the future of education.

Ashley Chiampo is the Chief Learning Officer at the Emeritus Institute of Management, an online learning company. Shehas over 20 years of experience supporting people and organizations to reach learning goals and achieve greater effectiveness. Her background includes working with CXOs and senior leaders in small private companies, international development organizations, and multi-billion dollar publicly traded organizations.  She focuses on creating and delivering meaningful learning experiences that can impact learner’s lives. Ashley also holds an Adjunct Faculty position at Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur, an affiliate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to Emeritus, Ashley Chiampo ran an executive coaching company, New Global Mind and worked at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Ashley is a trained group facilitator and a certified executive coach with over 2000 hours of coaching practice. She is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) granted by the ICF. Previously she was a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group and a mechanical engineer for PTC. Ashley holds an MBA degree from the Wharton School, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and a BA from Brown University.

Chuck Cohn is the Founder, Chairman & CEO of Nerdy (parent company of Varsity Tutors). Chuck founded the company in 2007 during his junior year of college after experiencing frustration finding the personalized help he needed for a calculus course. He spent his early career working in energy & power investment banking at Wells Fargo Securities (Wachovia) and healthcare private equity at Ascension Ventures, an $800M AUM private equity fund. Chuck bootstrapped Nerdy before leaving his private equity role to focus on growing Nerdy full-time at the end of 2011.

Anthony Salcito, Chief Institution Business Officer, leads Varsity Tutors for Schools and is responsible for Nerdy’s efforts to support institutions as they work to transform learning opportunities for students and educators across a range of offerings. Prior to joining Nerdy, Anthony served as Vice President of Worldwide Education at Microsoft. In this role, he was responsible for driving Microsoft’s education engagement and relationships globally, including long-term partnerships with schools, universities and other public sector customers. Throughout his Microsoft career, he helped launch many of the company’s cornerstone education programs and is recognized as a champion for teachers and a global education thought leader.

In this special "live" (or at least, unedited and recorded the same day it is published) episode, Ben and Alex discuss the growing narrative that Edtech company Chegg is 'the first victim of ChatGPT', which has caused a 40% reduction in its stock price this week, and its implications for the sector. 

Fadl and Nexford University are on a mission to solve the world's biggest challenge: education. As a next-generation university, Nexford is set to positively impact millions of lives globally.

Nexford’s two core principles are:

• A lack of education is the root cause of most global challenges; and
• People should be able to access economic opportunities, irrespective of physical location

Nexford is partnered with Microsoft, IBM and LinkedIn – who provide tools, courses and programmes to enrich the learning experience. Nexford also uses machine learning and AI to create a data and skills-driven curriculum designed to match employers’ needs.

Fadl became an entrepreneur at 18, and has 20 years’ experience founding digital marketing and technology businesses. He founded and managed the MENA region's leading digital engagement agency - its clients included: Fortune 500s, US State Department, International and government organizations.

Nancy Soni is the CEO/Co-Founder of PathMatch, an early career talent marketplace/platform connecting college students to modern careers, skills, and companies for internships and jobs. We're disrupting the antiquated campus recruiting processes that have left millions of students and graduates behind. 

PathMatch is an open marketplace where employers can search and connect with students at any university by their desired career path, skills, interests, location, and industry preferences, resulting in decreased time to hire, improved retention, and stronger engagement.

Previously, Nancy was the CEO/Founder of FILD, a tech-enabled recruiting firm that helped companies such as Warby Parker, Amazon, Snap, and Bonobos hire thousands of people. FILD was acquired in 2017. Nancy also served as Director of Recruiting at CyberCoders where she opened and scaled the LA, Boston, and New York offices from 0-100 recruiters over 5 years. Nancy holds a BA in Psychology from Emory University.

Recommended Resources:
The Permanent Detour: Underemployment’s Long-Term Effects on the Careers of College Grads by Burning Glass & Strada
College Scorecard by U.S. Department of Education
College Scorecard Tracker by Pathmatch

Kemi Akinsanya-Rose brings more than 20 years of consulting, operations, strategy, marketing, and education technology experience to Cambium. Kemi provides expertise in these areas to help Cambium develop leadership capabilities, scale business opportunities, and accelerate overall performance. Kemi is instrumental in leading Cambium’s overall and business unit objectives in organizational and talent strategy, diversity efforts, program development, and financial operations to expand our nationwide impact on student achievement and teacher professional development.

Kemi earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Northwestern University, her Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business, and a master’s degree in education leadership from the Broad Center at the Yale School of Management. Prior to joining Cambium, Kemi managed a global portfolio of client relationships across various industries where she provided bespoke strategic consulting services, served as the Chief Operating Officer & Chief Diversity Officer of EL Education (formerly Expeditionary Learning), and was the Chief Information Officer at the nation's largest school district, New York City Department of Education.
 

Marni Baker Stein is Coursera’s Chief Content Officer, where she oversees the company’s content and credential strategy and partner relationships. Marni has more than 25 years of experience in producing and scaling online and hybrid education programs.

Previously, she was provost and chief academic officer at Western Governors University, where she leads WGU’s academic programs, faculty, and teams. She drives the university’s focus on student success.

Prior to WGU, she served as chief innovation officer for the University of Texas System’s Institute for Transformational Learning. She also worked as the senior associate dean of Columbia University’s School of Continuing Education, where she oversaw the school’s academic portfolio and was responsible for the development, design, and evaluation of all online and hybrid programs.

In August 2016, Stein was selected by the Department of Education to serve as a member of the National Technical Working Group charged with using technology to transform higher education through the expansion of the 2016 National Educational Technology Plan.

Stein has a Ph.D. in teaching, learning, and curriculum from the University of Pennsylvania.

Rebecca Agostino is the Vice President of Learning at Multiverse, leading the program, coaching and intervention teams for the US region. 

Previously, she was the founding principal of Freedom Prep High School, a college-preparatory school in Camden, New Jersey, and a special educator in New York City. Rebecca graduated as a Robertson Scholar from Duke University with a BS in Economics; she earned a Master of Teaching from Fordham University and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Tiffany Green is the founder of Uprooted Academy™, an Edtech platform designed to give students courage, confidence, and competitiveness in the college application process. Tiffany is a Black, first-generation Edtech founder merging mental health and college access. She is also an adjunct faculty of undergraduate and graduate psychology and serves as a licensed therapist and college counselor for the world’s only high school that travels the globe. Tiffany earned her graduate degree in counseling psychology from Howard University and became a licensed psychotherapist. 
 
 Focusing on her passion for understanding and helping alleviate educational anxiety for students, the college readiness program incorporates mental well-being and social-emotional learning while affirming identity and providing the "cheat code" hidden from low-income, first-generation applicants could be vital in minimizing the social capital, opportunity, and wealth gap.