Führungsteam

Jeff Tarr is Chief Executive Officer of Skillsoft and brings a successful track record of building tech-enabled services companies into trusted industry leaders.

Over the last two decades, he has built three publicly traded, tech-enabled information companies into industry leaders. He previously served as Chief Executive Officer and a director of DigitalGlobe, the world leader in satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence, from 2011 until the sale of the company to MDA (now Maxar Technologies) in 2017. Subsequently, Jeff served as an advisor to TPG, other leading private equity firms and corporate clients. From June through October 2019, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Solera Holdings. Prior to DigitalGlobe, Jeff was President and Chief Operating Officer of IHS (now IHS Markit) and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the publicly-traded business information company, Hoover’s, Inc. (now a division of D&B). He began his career with Bain & Company.

Jeff currently serves on the board of EchoStar and is Chairman Emeritus of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Management Board. He also serves on the board of DSST Public Schools, one of the leading open enrollment school systems in the United States. He previously served on the board of CEB (The Corporate Executive Board Company) until the sale of the company to Gartner in 2017. Jeff also served as co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Council on the Future of Space Technologies and co-Chair of the Annual Meeting of New Champions in Dalian China. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jeff holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

As General Manager of the T&D Consumer business, Kunal oversees the B2C business under the Codecademy brand leading strategy, product development and go-to-market efforts. Kunal has been at Codecademy since 2019 and previously led strategy and product development for Codecademy before taking on his current role in 2022.

Kunal has strong experience building consumer products and businesses, previously working with startup incubator Rocket Internet where he started and led multiple ventures. Most recently he was COO at Snapp which is now one of the largest internet companies in the Middle East. Kunal started in strategy consulting with Bain and Company.

Kunal has a Bachelors in Engineering (with Distinction) from the University of Delhi and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

As Chief Marketing Officer, Michelle is responsible for the leading global marketing strategy for the Skillsoft group of companies, focused on driving growth, generating brand awareness and increasing demand for Skillsoft’s solutions among learners, customers and partners. Since joining the company in 2019, she has overseen customer marketing, corporate communications, demand generation, marketing operations and business development.

Michelle brings more than 25 years of marketing, branding and strategy experience to her role. Prior to Skillsoft, she held several executive positions of increasing responsibility in the high-tech sector, including as Chief Marketing Officer of IBM Watson, where she was responsible for marketing the company's artificial intelligence (AI) products and solutions. Michelle also served as the Global Head of Marketing for The Weather Company, an IBM Business, where she helped companies understand how to anticipate, plan for and ultimately make better decisions – with greater confidence - in the face of weather.

Michelle holds a Master's of Science from Simmons University.

Matthew Glitzer is currently the Chief Revenue Officer at Skillsoft. He most recently served as Vice President, Security Sales, IBM Americas where he was responsible for all Security related products and services. Previously, Matt served as Vice President, IBM’s Integrated Security Business Unit - Asia Pacific, where he was responsible for Security Software sales and Services and was a member of IBM’s regional Senior Leadership Team. In Matt’s prior roles in Greater China for IBM, he was a member of the Global Technology Services leadership team holding the positions of General Manager, Global Technology Services, Hong Kong and Head of Client Management and Offerings. In these roles he had country and regional P&L responsibility for all managed service clients, as well as technology solutioning, consulting and go-to-market offerings. Before joining IBM in 2005, he was vice president of Field Alliances for SAP America.

Matt holds a B.S. in Political Science from Rutgers College and a Masters in Business Administration from the George Washington University. He holds a certification from IBM’s Harvard Business School Certification Program and is a graduate of IBM’s Master Deal Making program through the Wharton School of Business.

He currently lives in Cary, North Carolina with his wife Colleen and two of their four children. In his leisure time, he enjoys cooking, entertaining, and is an avid tennis player.

Adam Goldman is the SVP and GM of Skillsoft's Technology & Developer business. Previously, he was the CFO of Codecademy and joined Skillsoft with the acquisition of Codecademy in 2022. He was previously VP and GM of the Chegg Books business, where he oversaw all of Chegg’s physical and digital textbook volume. His previous roles have included senior managerial positions in finance, marketing, and business development in enterprise and consumer software and hardware. He holds degrees from Stanford University (BS, MS, Computer Science; BA, Economics) and an MBA from Wharton.

Jim Gruskin currently serves as General Manager for Skillsoft’s Instructor-Led Training business. During his tenure at Global Knowledge prior to the merger with Skillsoft, Jim served as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

Jim has spent over 20 years as a transformational leader and senior executive with a focus on strategy, finance and operations.

Jim has executed over 45 capital market and strategic transactions with a total value of over $75 billion. During his career he has worked as an investment banker, investor, strategic thought leader, and senior corporate finance decision maker.

Previous experience includes Managing Partner of Cobb Bay Partners, a mergers and acquisitions advisory firm; Head of Strategic Finance and Treasurer at marketing solutions provider Dex One Corporation; Head of Business Development and Chief Accounting Officer at regional newspaper publisher Journal Register Company; technology, media and telecom investment banker at Morgan Stanley; and private equity investor at Prudential Capital.

Jim received a bachelor of science degree in economics with a concentration in finance from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and an MBA in finance from The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

As Chief People Officer, Ciara oversees Skillsoft’s people and workforce strategies, which includes accelerating efforts to attract, retain, and develop the best talent in the industry and advancing the company’s culture of leadership and learning.

Ciara brings more than 20 years of HR, total rewards, workforce transformation, and M&A experience to her role. Prior to joining Skillsoft, she served as Head of Total Rewards at Syngenta, where she implemented a best-in-class benefits offering, developed and implemented pay management processes designed to drive equity, and managed her function through a period of transition from a regional to BU-based model. Additionally, she held HR Lead roles in Dell’s Total Rewards Team, as well as a senior HR leadership role on the EMEA HR Workstream for the Dell and EMC Corporation merger.

Earlier in her career, Ciara served as a global HR Integration Lead for the NBC Universal and Comcast Corporation merger and worked on global HR transformations for Fortune 500 companies at Deloitte Consulting.

Ciara holds a Bachelor of Business and Information Systems from University College Cork.

As Skillsoft’s Chief Technology Officer, AP is responsible for engineering, product management, cloud operations and IT across all products in the Skillsoft group of companies, a role he has held since 2016.

AP has extensive experience supporting rapidly growing technology companies, including as General Manager and SVP of SaaS at SevOne, where he was responsible for the on-demand / SaaS business segment. He previously served as Group President at ACI Worldwide and as Director of Software at IBM.

AP holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University, Masters of Science in Computer Science from Washington State University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Jadavpur University in India.

As Chief Financial Officer, Rich oversees Skillsoft’s global finance function including planning and analysis, treasury, tax, accounting, procurement, internal audit, and investor relations. Rich also leads Skillsoft’s corporate strategy and development activities focusing on investments to drive sustained organic and acquired growth for the business worldwide.

Bringing extensive experience to his role, Rich previously served as Chief Financial Officer for multiple market-leading public and private companies including ServiceSource and IHS Markit (acquired by SAP Global). In these positions, Rich oversaw global finance functions, built corporate strategy and development functions, and led the successful completion of more than 70 strategic acquisitions.

Rich was previously an advisor to Churchill Capital and a member of the Board of Directors for ServiceSource. He holds an MBA from the University of Denver and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Colorado where he graduated magna cum laude.

Lindsey Padrino leads corporate strategy and business operations at Skillsoft. She brings over 20 years of experience transforming organizations and their employees.

Prior to joining Skillsoft, Lindsey spent a decade at McKinsey & Company where she helped clients with their go-to-market strategy, salesforce transformations, and talent strategies. She also built and led McKinsey’s Growth Academy, which delivered scalable, global talent programs to build and sustain world-class commercial capabilities that drive growth. Prior to McKinsey, she held leadership roles in several education organizations.

Lindsey lives in the Washington, D.C. area with her husband and her three young daughters. She is on the boards of CareerWise USA and the Colorado Education Initiative.

She holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.