Board

Carol A. Goss was a 2014 fellow in the Advanced Leadership Initiative program at Harvard University. Prior to joining Harvard, Goss served as president & CEO of The Skillman Foundation, a private independent foundation whose mission is to improve the lives of children in metropolitan Detroit by strengthening their schools and neighborhoods. Goss’ professional career includes nearly 20 years’ experience in child welfare, family services and youth development. Goss worked as a program officer at the Stuart Foundation and as a program director at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and has served on the board of City Connect Detroit, the Council of Michigan Foundations, the Council on Foundations, the Education Achievement Authority, Living Cities, New Detroit Inc., the University of Michigan Alumni Association, and the Youth Development Commission. A native Detroiter, Goss has a BA in sociology and an MSW from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Deb deVries has over 30 years of experience in the education industry. She began her career in the classroom as a special education teacher after earning her master’s degree at the University of Utah. She has held marketing and sales leadership positions supporting educational technology in K-12 schools nationwide with Control Data Corporation, MECC, NetSchools, PLATO, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In addition, she has been a successful independent consultant providing services to companies and organizations including Connors Communications, Consulting Services for Education (CS4ED), International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Time To Know, Lightspeed Technologies, Red Rock Reports, Association for Educational Publishers (AEP), Pearson Foundation, American Association for School Administrators (AASA), Impact Education and most recently Nervanix. In 2014, Deb retired from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and has since focused on independent consulting and developing Girls Thinking Global with her long time colleague and good friend, Kathy Hurley.

Kathy Hurley is a 40+ year veteran of the education industry. Throughout her career, Kathy has served in top positions in both publishing and technology companies, which includes executive positions with Pearson and IBM. In December of 2014, Kathy retired from Pearson where she spent ten years and served as Executive Vice President Education Alliances, for the Pearson Foundation. Kathy utilizes her expertise in education policy, sales, marketing and business development to help further the work of top businesses, executive level customers, associations and foundations. In 2014, she co-founded an international non-profit called Girls Thinking Global which is committed to educating and empowering girls and women by creating a collaborative space for best practices, open resources, and recognition of groups and individuals who work to empower girls around the world. In April 2015, she is set to publish her first book, Real Women, Real Leaders (Wiley) with co-editor, Priscilla Shumway. Kathy is based in Washington, D.C., where she works closely with education associations.

President Robert Meyer has 18 years of territory sales, sales management, marketing, product development and general management experience in the K-12 publishing industry. Prior to co-founding Ventris in 2013, Meyer worked as Wisconsin Account Executive for the Scholastic Corporation, VP of School Sales at Failure Free Reading, Sales & Marketing Director at Knowledge Unlimited, Director of Educational Services at MetaMetrics, and Business Development Manager for Advantage Learning Systems. Earlier in his career, Meyer worked in a national business development role for Micro-Surface Finishing Products, and in regional sales positions for Air & Water Technologies. Meyer holds music education and MBA degrees from the University of Iowa.

Stuart Udell is CEO of Achieve3000. His 25 years of industry leadership experience includes serving as CEO of Catapult Learning, and CEO of Penn Foster, which he sold to The Princeton Review in what was named by Thomson Reuters as 2009 Private Equity Deal of the Year. Stuart additionally spent eleven years at Kaplan, most recently as President of Kaplan K12 Learning Services. From 1997-2001, Stuart helped drive Renaissance Learning’s rapid post-IPO growth as President of its subsidiary School Renaissance Institute. He served on the board of directors of Renaissance Learning until the sale of the company in 2014. Stuart has spent the last 16 years as a board member of The National Dropout Prevention Center/Network (part of Clemson University), which he formerly chaired. Stuart served several terms on the Software and Information Industry Association board.. Stuart has an MBA from Columbia University and a BS from Bucknell University.

Additional board members TBA soon.