People
CEO of Knewton Steps Down
Knewton — an adaptive learning company whose technology resides in offerings from Cengage, Pearson, Elsevier and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt — has announced that its chief executive officer, Jose Ferreira, is stepping down and joining the company’s Board of Directors to help guide the company as it continues to expand its reach into new markets and products.
“After eight years of working 24/7/365 to build Knewton and position it as the standard-bearer in the industry, I believe it is the right time to step aside from day-to-day responsibilities to focus on other education trends that interest me,” Ferreira said in a company statement. “I wanted to prove to the world that adaptive learning was possible, would improve learning outcomes, and was the inevitable future of course materials. But after nearly a decade, I need a break. I would like to recharge for a bit and then maybe try something different.”
Ferreira founded Knewton in 2008 and the company has served more than 13 million students across almost every continent. Formerly an executive at Kaplan,Ferreira was also a strategist for John Kerry’s president campaign in 2004.
Currently, Ferreira resides on the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Education & Skills and the advisory boards for Laureate International Universities, Cambridge University Press and the annual ASU/GSV Education Innovation Summit, according to Knewton’s website. In addition, he serves as a partner at New Atlantic Ventures, where he invests in new media and SaaS companies.
Replacing him is Ryan Prichard, the Knewton’s chief technology officer, who “has been responsible for driving the company’s technology vision for more than four years,” according to a statement. As CEO, Prichard plans to build upon his predecessor's vision and lead the company into its next phase.
Further information is available on the Knewton site.