People on the Move

New Executive Roles for Cowdrey, Steer, Jonas, Johnson, Bloom, Franks, Brook, Glenn, McKown, Ramani, and Osmond

• By Kristal Kuykendall
• 03/07/23

Editor’s Note: THE Journal welcomes submissions about new hires and promotions among ed tech industry executives and K–12 public school administrators in the United States. Contributed news items will be published regularly on THEJournal.com; the archives can be accessed at any time at THEJournal.com/articles/list/people-on-the-move.

To submit news about new leadership and management changes at K–12 ed tech companies and at nonprofits in the K–12 ed tech space, complete the form at bit.ly/EdTechPeopleNews. To submit news about new hires and promotions among K–12 public schools administration, complete the form at bit.ly/K12AdminNews. News releases should be emailed to [email protected].

Jeremy Cowdrey is Discovery Education’s New CEO

 has a new CEO: Jeremy Cowdrey, who most recently served as CEO of Imagine Learning. 

Discovery Education’s outgoing CEO Scott Kinney will retire from full-time duties after 18 years with the company, according to a news release; Kinney will remain a member of Discovery Education’s Board of Directors. 

Cowdrey joined Imagine Learning in 2006, and in the years since was promoted from regional partnership director to executive vice president of sales and marketing, then to president and ultimately to the CEO position.

Previously, he held sales and management positions at several software and education companies, and has worked in ed tech for over 23 years, Discovery Education said. “As the first person in his immediate family to graduate from college, Mr. Cowdrey has a deep-seated belief in the value, purpose, mission, and importance an education brings,” the company said.

Learn more at DiscoveryEducation.com.

EDC Names Liesbet Steer as President and CEO

Education Development Center, a global nonprofit advancing solutions at the intersection of education, health, and economic opportunity, has named Liesbet Steer as its next president and CEO. 

Steer, who began her new role at EDC on March 1, brings more than 20 years of international development and finance experience, according to a news release. 

“As a fellow at The Brookings Institution, she authored a flagship report on education investment, which led to the creation of the Education Commission, chaired by former UK Prime Minister and UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown,” EDC said. “As executive director of the Commission since 2015, she has led global work on multiple key education transformations, including learning models, the education workforce, service delivery, financing, and cross-sectoral action.”

Steer now leads the EDC team of 1,400 professionals working on learning, health, and youth and workforce development.

Steer replaces outgoing CEO Dave Offensend, who retired after leading EDC for the past seven years.

Learn more at edc.org.

Michael Jonas Named Co-President and COO at GoGuardian

GoGuardian has promoted Chief Financial Officer Michael Jonas, naming him co-president and chief operating officer, according to a news release. 

Since he joined GoGuardian in 2019, Jonas has guided the company through “exceptional growth”: its portfolio of learning solutions has grown as he led the acquisitions of Pear Deck, Edulastic, and TutorMe, and GoGuardian — now valued at over $1 billion — has tripled its employee base and now serves more than 25 million students and 686,000 educators across America.

Prior to 2019, Jonas was CFO at ThriftBooks, and he held senior financial and operational roles during a 14-year stint at Microsoft.

Learn more at GoGuardian.com.

Panorama Education Taps Danny Johnson as Chief Technology Officer

Panorama Education has named Danny Johnson as its new Chief Technology Officer. 

The announcement comes as Panorama Education expands its executive leadership team and follows recent appointments of Chief Product Officer Jessica Tiwari and Chief Legal Officer Andrew Ting, according to a news release. 

Johnson will lead the engineering team behind the Panorama platform, “setting and executing Panorama's technology strategy, and driving ambitious product development,” the company said. 

Johnson’s career and expertise comprise “a well-rounded combination of technical skill, team-building, leadership, and cross-functional collaboration experience”; he most recently served as VP of product and engineering at Ridgeline, a financial services SaaS platform. Previously, his leadership at Workday helped scale the company through IPO and beyond, according to Panorama’s announcement. 

Earlier in his career, Johnson held engineering and product management roles at Oracle and PeopleSoft.

Learn more at PanoramaEd.com.

Lainey Franks is Tools for Schools’ New CEO