About CourseSmart

Management

Sean Devine
Chief Executive Officer

Sean Devine joined CourseSmart in May 2006 with 25 years of experience in the development, sales and marketing of online information services, and has been responsible for the company formation and the development of CourseSmart's product and marketing strategy.

Prior to CourseSmart, he spent six years as the CEO of Safari Books Online, a leading provider of electronic access to Computer & Business books. He was responsible for the company launch in 2001 and led the company to being a leading provider of electronic book access for individuals, libraries and corporations. Prior to Safari Books Online, Sean was at ibooks.com, where he was responsible for the marketing launch of the company and for developing strategic distribution relationships. He was Senior Vice President for business development at Books24x7.com, responsible for strategy, sales and partnerships, negotiating strategic relationships with several leading eLearning companies to distribute the company's offerings worldwide. Sean has also held senior positions with information providers and publishers such as Dun & Bradstreet, UMI/Bell & Howell, Ziff Davis and The Thomson Corporation.

Sean graduated Summa Cum Laude with a bachelor of art's degree in English Literature from Saint Mary's College of California. He currently resides in Sebastopol, California with his wife and college sweetheart, and takes pride in the accomplishments of his children, one having graduated Georgetown, Oxford and Stanford Law, and the other serving as a Captain in the USMC.

Patti Randall
Chief Financial Officer

Patti Randall brings to her role at CourseSmart over 20 years of accumulated experience in financial management and technology. Since joining CourseSmart in 2007, Patti has managed all finance, accounting, and human resource operations, including financial reporting, budgeting and forecasting.

Prior to CourseSmart, Patti served as Chief Financial Officer of Active Reasoning, a company providing software to automate IT compliance. Patti has also served as CFO of PERSIST Technologies, a leading provider of software designed for long term storage and access of reference materials, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. Earlier in her career, she held leadership positions where she was responsible for budgeting, forecasting, cash management and financial analysis at netempact, Inc., which provides end to end consulting services and web based solutions; Women.com, a leading internet media company and the number one source for women's information online.; SOFTBANK Marketing Solutions, a provider of private label one-to-one direct marketing and loyalty membership programs; and Information Access Company, a worldwide leader in providing periodical indexes.

Patti holds an MBA in Finance from Notre Dame de Namur University and a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems Management from California State University, East Bay, having also completed an executive development program at Columbia. During college, Patti most enjoyed taking classes from inspired professors - something she reminds her sons at UC Santa Cruz and University of Colorado, Boulder, to cherish.

Patti currently resides in Redwood City, California with her husband and two dogs, (one who delights in eating books so CourseSmart the ideal solution for their household).

Cindy Clarke
Senior Vice President, Marketing

As Senior Vice President, Marketing, Cindy Clarke drives the growth and sales strategy across CourseSmart's customer channels. She brings more than 20 years of leadership, advertising, marketing and product development to her current position at CourseSmart.

Cindy previously led strategy development and execution for acquiring and retaining customers at CourseSmart as the VP, Customer Acquisition and Retention. Prior to joining CourseSmart, Cindy served as the VP, Marketing and Product Management for TRUE Cosmetics LLC, a leader in the cosmetics industry offering a variety of performance beauty products and spa services. She also held the Director of Merchandise position at CafePress where she launched more products in one year than the company had in any prior years, resulting in an annual incremental revenue increase of more than $1.5 million. Additionally, as the Director of Products and Services at Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spas, Cindy led the development and launch of the company's fully integrated skincare product line and facial services. She has also held various senior management positions at Corbis, MyFamily.com and at Starbucks Coffee Company.

Cindy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Playing ultimate frisbee and learning that she can get A's in both photography and accounting are among her fondest memories from university. Cindy resides in San Mateo with her husband and 2 dogs. In her spare time she volunteers for the Peninsula Humane Society and enjoys keeping fit, going to the beach and reading.

Jim Ambach
Senior Vice President, Product Management

Jim Ambach brings more than 10 years of experience building web-based products and enhancing user experience and online community development to CourseSmart.

Jim previously served as vice president of product at Jigsaw.com, the world's largest database of downloadable and complete contact and company information, where he was responsible for product strategy, user experience and data services. He has also held key leadership roles at eBay where he managed several teams of product managers including the European product team, the core product team and oversaw the teams that designed all seller tools and functionality. During his time at eBay, Jim redefined the company's PowerSeller program to highlight seller quality and sales volume. Jim has also served in key leadership roles at a variety of companies in Silicon Valley including Netscape, a computer services company best known for its web browser and AOL, a global Internet services and media company. As a professional researcher at the University of Colorado's Center for Lifelong Learning and Design, Jim co-authored a number of research grants and published research papers on using technology to build educational simulations.

Jim has a degree in Computer Science from Brown University, and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado, both having fostered Jim's love for programming. Having met at Brown, Jim and his wife now reside in Los Altos, California with their three children-hoping their "double legacy" will facilitate their entry into Brown in the future.

Bryan Spaulding
Senior Vice President, Technology and Business Operations

Bryan brings to his role at CourseSmart nearly 20 years of experience building innovative digital initiatives. He joined CourseSmart in 2011 and is responsible for setting the overall technical direction for the company, including leading all architectural planning and technical operations, managing relationships with technology partners, and engaging with partners and CourseSmart customers to ensure the seamless integration of third party platforms.

Prior to CourseSmart, Bryan was the Senior Director of Media and Publishing at Optaros, a global eCommerce systems integration and solutions provider, where his infrastructure re–platform helped a client realize a greater than $300 million run–rate for their business, in addition to expanding their business internationally. Earlier in his career, Bryan was a founding member of the Movielink team and held several senior–level positions at the leading consumer Internet video download service company during his five year tenure, including Chief Technology Officer. As Vice President of Technology for Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, he led multi–lateral negotiations among five major entertainment studios while managing a stable of engineers and system administrators to ensure uninterrupted delivery of the company's online entertainment services to its consumers. Additionally, Bryan has held leadership positions at Viant Corporation, a technology consulting firm.

Bryan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Stanford University. During his college years, he enjoyed tailgating before (and at times through) football games, playing frisbee golf, and accessing University online services through his Macintosh LC at the blazing–fast modem speed rate of 14,400 bits per second. He resides in Burlingame, California with his wife, two daughters and cat. For recreation and quality time, Bryan enjoys home improvement tasks, reading and teaching himself the guitar.

Shannon Meadows
Senior Vice President, Business Development

Shannon Meadows brings to her role at CourseSmart more than two decades of experience in the education technology industry. Shannon is responsible for defining market strategies and operational opportunities that will make CourseSmart successful in meeting its institutional and distribution partnership goals.

Prior to joining CourseSmart, Shannon served as the Vice President for Sales Operations at Blackboard where she was responsible for integrating two complex acquisitions into the mainstream of Blackboard's selling capabilities, while leading various divisions of the company including Learn, Transact, Collaborate, Mobile and Connect. In this role, Shannon also built Blackboard's Sales Training and Development Group and established their Sales Leadership Summit. Shannon also served as Vice President of Higher Education at the NTI Group, successfully developing and executing a strategy for taking the early stage start-up into the higher education space. The NTI Group is now known as BlackBoard Connect. Additionally, Shannon held the Director of National Sales, Higher Education position at Macromedia and led the company's efforts to enter the Higher Education market. She currently serves as the Corporate Representative for the Western Cooperative for Education and Technology (WCET) Executive Council, WCET Steering Committee, and is a co-chair for the WCET Retention CIG. She also participates in Education Associations including EDUCAUSE, VSS, The League for Innovation, IACLEA, and NACAC.

Shannon earned a Bachelors Degree from the University of Texas at Austin, graduating with high honors in Creative Writing and minoring in Computer Science, Dance and Government. In her spare time, Shannon is an avid artist and oil painter, and she enjoys spending time outdoors hiking and snow skiing.

Daryl Fox
Senior Vice President, Publisher and Content Strategy

As Senior Vice President of Publisher and Content Strategy, Daryl is responsible for developing the content strategies with CourseSmart's publisher partners to ensure the content exceeds industry standards for effective discovery, display and access by students, faculty and educational institutions.

Daryl has spent the past 25 years in higher education publishing, and has held VP–level positions in Science, Economics, Finance, and the Social Sciences for more than 15 years. Most recently, he was Vice President and Editorial Director for Political Science, Communication, Theatre, Film and Public Relations at Pearson where he managed 25 full–time editors and generated nearly $100 million of the company's overall revenue. He also spearheaded many innovative digital media products, including HTML5–based, experiential and speech–related products. Daryl began his career as a Sales Representative for McGraw Hill then later joined Harcourt Brace Jovanovich as its Developmental Editor in Economics. He later became the company's Acquisitions Editor in Economics and Business.

Daryl has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and German from Miami University of Ohio, a Master of Arts degree from Southern Methodist University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the London School of Economics. He was recently named Chairman of the Board of the Alfred Harcourt Foundation, a charitable trust designed to send approximately 100 deserving, disadvantaged students to college each year. Daryl has always been fascinated by how students learn–starting in the third grade when he discovered the color–coded SRA reading system. This is when he knew he wanted to develop, publish and deliver compelling content. Daryl lives in Manhattan with his partner, and plays tennis at every possible opportunity.

Andrew Alfers
Vice President, Platform & Integration Services

Andrew Alfers has over thirteen years experiencing developing and implementing web–based products for students and instructors of K–12 and higher education institutions. This includes over four years working at CourseSmart, focusing on the acquisition, organization, and delivery of digital course materials as well as integrations with partner learning management and retail systems to distribute CourseSmart content.

Andrew came to CourseSmart from Houghton Mifflin, where he was Senior Director of Product Development and Client Operations for the Edusoft assessment platform, the leading formative assessment tool used by K–12 school districts nationally. Under his leadership, Edusoft developed its integration services with other system providers using the schools interoperability framework, and scaled its operations to support significant increases in usage among the largest school districts nationally. Prior to Edusoft, Andrew served as Director of Product Development at Classroom Connect, a division of Harcourt, which provided an array of professional development and curriculum programs to school districts nationally. At Project Achieve/Achievement Technologies, Inc., Andrew led the professional services team that implemented software with school faculty and staff.

Andrew holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the University of Notre Dame, a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Portland, and a Master in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Fionnuala Duggan
Managing Director, International

As the Managing Director for CourseSmart International, Fionnuala is responsible for developing and launching CourseSmart's global presence, building a leading position in the UK and other international markets.

Fionnuala brings with her more than 20 years of experience within the digital media industry. Prior to joining CourseSmart, Fionnuala served as the Director of Digital at The Random House Group Ltd, where she set up and led the company's digital initiatives, including the launch of digital businesses for ebooks, audio, apps and web. At EMI Recorded Music, she served as the Vice President of New Media for Europe and International, where she successfully developed and executed a strategy for the company's e-commerce business and brokered strategic global relationships with e-commerce and mobile merchants. Also at EMI, as Director of Multimedia Services, she set up the first European DVD facility at AbbeyRoad Interactive.

Fionnuala earned a Bachelor of Arts (Mod) in Experimental Physics from Trinity College Dublin, and a Masters in Business Administration from INSEAD in Fontainebleau. At Trinity College, Fionnuala was the auditor of the Physics Society, introducing new revision tools such as "particle bingo," and also engaged with the Law Society for all social events.

Fionnuala lives in North London, near Camden Town, with her husband and three children.