Shmoop Expands its Leadership Team Fueling its Rapid Growth
New SVP of Sales, VP of Presales & Support, and promotion of COO will help drive Shmoop to its next stage of growth.
LEHI, Utah, April 1, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Shmoop, the award-winning digital education solutions provider, has announced the hires of Tommy Barlow as SVP of Sales, Taylor Johnson as VP of Presales & Support, and the promotion of Mike Soldan to Chief Operating Officer (COO). These accomplished leaders will join CEO, Andy Rahden in helping deliver on Shmoop's aggressive growth goals utilizing their world class suite of products and people.
"Shmoop has become the leader in research-based edtech tools for the K-12 space. I'm extremely proud of the tools we've built and the team we've brought together. The fact that such strong leaders as Tommy, & Taylor are joining our team reflects that success", said Rahden. "Mike has been a critical component of our success to date. Having him continue to lead our product experience strategy with the addition of our operating frameworks, marketing & other departments will only bring a greater experience to our students & districts."
Mike Soldan, Chief Operating Officer (COO)
With an extensive background in product & service innovation, Soldan joined Shmoop as its CXO in July of 2019. Chartered with leading a highly effective revamp of its content, engineering, and product organizations, including the launch of the revolutionary Shmoop Heartbeat. His ability to operationalize Shmoop and implement a strong operating framework has helped the company grow more effectively. In addition to his current teams, he'll be leading company operations, strategy, & marketing.
Tommy Barlow, SVP - Sales
Barlow is a growth executive who brings a wealth of leadership experience spanning startups, IPO, and Fortune's #3 ranked business in the world. For the last decade, his focus has been on the intersection of technology and education, having brought cutting-edge products and services to individuals, private, and public sector organizations across the globe. Over that span, Barlow pioneered efforts to address market needs through custom mobile applications, disruptive Learning Management System (LMS) technology, immersive and interactive learning, and international expansion. As SVP, he will lead our obsession over student & educator engagement through presales, support, & customer success. His teams will also help deliver the voice of our students, teachers, and school districts back to Shmoop's product teams to ensure continuous improvement and innovation around the evolving needs in education. Barlow's initial charter will be to complete our hiring plan for customer-facing roles in our "Silicon Slopes" offices located in Utah and to develop a value-based approach for customer engagements.
Barlow joins us from his most recent role as Head of Training Sales at AWS, where his teams supported the largest companies in the world by designing and implementing hybrid digital and in-person training programs to innovate with cloud technology and services. Prior to AWS, he held several sales leadership roles at Pluralsight, where he was a founding member of their international HQ expansion in Dublin, Ireland, which contributed to a successful IPO in 2018.
Taylor Johnson, VP - Presales & Support
Taylor is a technologist, educator, leader and has a proven track record in delivering world-class technology and learning solutions. He has spent the last 10 years within the educational technology space with prestigious companies that are building the future of education. As VP of Presales and Support, he will lead the overall efforts in building complete, rock-solid solutions for our customers, providing world-class support, and putting the student at the core of every interaction with Shmoop's products. He will be laser-focused on the outcomes of our customers that help demonstrate knowledge, competency, mental health, and awareness in students, teachers, parents, and schools in the ever-changing digital age. He continues to push the boundaries between tech and education, giving students around the world a purpose to learn and excel.
Before joining Shmoop, Taylor was a Director of Presales at Pluralsight, where he helped some of the largest customers implement outcome-driven learning objectives to drive the new digital workforce. He was able to build processes, tools, and frameworks that became paramount to the overall success and growth of the organization globally. While building high output teams, his primary focus was to demonstrate and provide methods and strategies utilizing educational technology and digital learning in order to maximize the outputs of employees. Prior to Pluralsight, he was a Solution Consultant at Instructure. He consulted and built custom solutions to cater to the every need of students for the top universities and districts in the US on top of the Canvas LMS product.
Shmoop works with schools across the nation and its online content is viewed more than 5 million times per month. Its tool, the Shmoop Heartbeat™, has captured more than 300,000 student responses in its first year of release. To learn about the company's comprehensive offerings, including how to purchase a license for a classroom, school or district, visit http://www.shmoop.com/schools-districts.
Shmoop recently released a new blog highlighting education-focused thought leadership articles titled, "Chalk It Up." To learn more about Shmoop's perspective on education from the blog, visit: https://www.shmoop.com/resources/chalk-it-up.
About Shmoop
Shmoop provides schools with online courses, test readiness, and whole-child solutions focused on personalized learning and college and career readiness, all designed for students and used by teachers for both in-person and remote learning. Shmoop's research-based classroom technology, Heartbeat™, focuses on a student's emotional health, cognitive position, and background to improve their ability to achieve academically (http://www.shmoop.com).
Media Contact
Curtis Linnell, Shmoop, 1 8014037451, [email protected]
SOURCE Shmoop
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