Some big personnel changes in LMS market

In just the past week we have had three fairly significant people depart higher ed LMS companies. This really is turning out to be a bumpy ride as the market changes.

• Ray Henderson announced last night that he is leaving his operational role at Blackboard (President, Academic Platforms and CTO) and is moving into a role with the Board of Directors. More info from Jay Bhatt’s post here and Ray Henderson’s post here. Michael is working on an e-Literate post with more information soon. Bill Flook covered in an article here.
• Devlin Daley, one of the two founders of Instructure, the company behind the Canvas LMS, is leaving the company as of today. I talked to Instructure rep today who indicated that Devlin is looking to get back in to startup ed tech mode, whereas Instructure is becoming a larger company. I’ll write more of an analysis on this move soon. For now I’ll just say that it is extremely rare for a tech founder to leave a company that might go public within a year or two.
• Al Essa, the Director of Analytics Research and Strategy for Desire2Learn, has left the company to join McGraw-Hill based on his LinkedIn profile. This is curious timing, given Desire2Learn’s major focus on analytics and the Student Success System this year.

More to come.

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