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Explore solutions for access, affordability, and achievement
Executive Leadership Symposium
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Thank you for joining us in Huntington Beach for a two-day event geared toward academic executives. We hope you had the opportunity to gain insights and strategies to solve the issues of access, affordability, and achievement — the most critical and compelling matters that institutions face today.
Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa, Huntington Beach, CA
Thank you for joining us in Huntington Beach for a two-day event geared toward academic executives. We hope you had the opportunity to gain insights and strategies to solve the issues of access, affordability, and achievement — the most critical and compelling matters that institutions face today.
Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa, Huntington Beach, CA
Please check back for possible additional details.
Speakers
Check back soon for updates and speaker biographies.
John Benton
Partner
California Strategies, LLC
John Benton is a determined advocate for his clients in the halls and hearing rooms of California's State Capitol and with the state's many regulatory agencies. This same commitment carries over into his development of winning strategies for clients who are pursuing state and local government contracts, procurements and public-private partnerships. Over the course of his career, John has provided strategic consulting and legislative lobbying services for business clients and non-profits on issues relating to the state budget, education, early childhood development, health care, civil litigation, construction, environmental protection, insurance, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, taxation, workers' compensation and occupational safety.
Prior to joining California Strategies, Benton was one of the founding partners of Government Strategies Inc. (GSI), a successful lobbying, government affairs and procurement firm located in Sacramento, California.
Earlier, he served as a regulatory and legislative counsel in the corporate legal departments of three large, national insurers: CNA Insurance Companies, Transamerica Insurance Group and CIGNA. For these industry giants, his work included directing the organization’s legislative and regulatory interests in all 50 states; helping to defeat industry-threatening statewide ballot initiatives; and serving as a chief compliance and enforcement negotiator with state insurance regulators.
Upon graduation from Drake University Law School in 1983, he began his career as a staff attorney in the Iowa Department of Insurance. During his years with the department, he prosecuted agents and companies, handled consumer issues, served as an administrative hearing officer, and advocated departmental positions in the Iowa Legislature.
Benton lives in Sacramento with his wife of 35 years and has three grown children. Over the span of his career, he has participated and chaired a number of local and national philanthropic, school, sports, and professional organizations.
Brian Buckley
AVP, Digital Delivery & Analytics
Pearson
Brian Buckley is Associate Vice President for Digital Delivery & Analytics. As part of Pearson's Strategic Partnerships team, he works closely with institutional and instructional leaders to help them leverage data to inform course design and courseware implementation, and to identify and intervene with at-risk students to increase engagement, success, retention, and goal attainment.
Michael Hale
VP, Education
VitalSource
Mike Hale, PhD, is the VP of education for North America for VitalSource. Mike has more than 25 years in the field of education. He has spent the last 13 with VitalSource, helping institutions improve outcomes and affordably create and deliver learning solutions. He is currently responsible for leading VitalSource’s North American higher education initiatives. Prior to joining VitalSource, Mike spent 14 years working to improve K-12 education as a college professor, high school teacher, and director of a successful charter school.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Auburn University and a Master’s and Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sean Kavanagh
CEO
The Ariel Group
Sean Kavanagh has been with The Ariel Group since 1999 when he joined the company as Director of Business Development. He was named CEO in January 2003, and his marketing and leadership influence has created double-digit growth. He was instrumental in winning a publishing contract from Gotham Books and contributed to the writing of the book Leadership Presence: Dramatic Techniques to Reach Out, Motivate, and Inspire.
Sean lives at the intersection of business and the performing arts both as leader of Ariel and as a speaker and facilitator. He combines his business knowledge and performing experience in delivering storytelling workshops where he talks about the integration of the skills of the actor/performer with the expertise of leaders in business and non-profits.
Sean started his career working with a multinational advertising agency in Brussels while also performing with the American Theater Company. His professional career since then includes working in publishing and software marketing while always keeping close ties to the theater. In the 1980’s he was part of a two-person comedy troupe and more recently has revived his stand-up routine in the Boston area.
Sean is a member of Association for Talent Development (ATD) and on the board of The Association of Learning Providers (ISA). Sean has three children and lives in Carlisle, MA, is a teen mentor and theater director for the youth of his church, and enjoys cycling, skiing and camping as well as the occasional performance with the local community theater. He holds a BA in Psychology from Merrimack College.
Chuck Melley
Vice President, U.S. Government Relations
Pearson
Leading a team of legislative and communications professionals, consultants and lobbyists, Melley oversees government relations for Pearson North America. Melley’s team also manages corporate and industry strategic alliances.
Prior to coming to Pearson, Melley was Executive Director of Government and External Relations, overseeing international, federal and state-level government and media relations for ETS.
Before joining ETS in 2001, Melley was a presidential appointee at the United States Department of Commerce, serving in the Senior Executive Service as Deputy Director of Public Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce. There, he was the department spokesman responsible for communications strategy, participated in trade and policy missions to Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, and served on White House task groups and commissions. Melley also was Chief of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency.
Ken Pegram
Group Vice President, Sales and Operations
Follett Higher Education
Ken Pegram is the Group Vice President for Western Operations with Follett Higher Education. Ken supports a diverse group of over one hundred and sixty campus partnerships across the western United States including more than one hundred accounts in the State of California. He leads a team of seven regional managers who work to support campus operations and relationships, expand implementation efforts for Follett’s innovative affordability solutions, and partner with campuses to meet their student success and retention goals. Ken has been with Follett for seventeen years in a variety of operational roles and has worked in higher education retailing for over twenty years.
Willie Peng
Interim Assistant Vice President, Information
Cal State Fullerton
Willie Peng is the Interim Assistant Vice President for Information Technology/Academic Technology Services. Prior to his appointment, Willie served as Assistant Director, Infrastructure Services. Willie oversees all Academic Technology Services including the Academic Technology Center, Deskside Support, College Support Services, and Classroom Technology.
In addition, Willie has played an integral part in providing strategic direction to senior leadership in technology and leading innovative projects to improve IT operations. Some of the projects Willie has worked on include the campus wide virtual infrastructure, the implementation of the first campus wide network security, the campus wide wireless upgrade, and most recently, the implementation of the Modular Data Center, Titan Direct Access eTextBooks and the TITANium Engagement Dashboard.
Willie holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science with an emphasis in Software Engineering from California State University, Fullerton. Since joining the campus community in 1995, Willie has had many different roles including Senior Network Analyst and Infrastructure Services Lead. In addition, he has intermittently taught various computer science courses at Cal State Fullerton, including Unix Operating Systems, Foundations of Software Engineering and Computer Communications.
Catrina Poe
VP, Strategic Partnerships
Pearson
Catrina Poe has been with Pearson for 11 years in a variety of positions, and she has over 25 years of experience in education. Her most current position, as VP for Strategic Partnerships, allows her an opportunity to partner with educational institutions around strategic initiatives. Working with senior level college administrators, Poe and her team craft, design and implement solutions that solve tomorrow’s problems today. Poe has also held positions of a college administrator, dean and faculty member. She holds a Doctor of Business Administration and a Master of Organizational Behavior, and she is a published author.
Matthew Stevenson
Executive Director
Pearson
Matt Stevenson is part of Pearson's strategic partnerships team and is the executive director for Central California, Southern California and Hawaii. Matt works with institutional leadership to understand their strategic priorities and aligns Pearson solutions to institutional objectives. Since starting with Pearson in January of 2017, Matt's worked with 18 institutions to roll out initiatives focused on affordability and access to Pearson content. Prior to Pearson, Matt owned his own technology and consulting company. In total, he has 10 years of experience solving problems in the higher education space.
Symposium Presentation Archive
Check out presentations and videos from Executive Leadership Symposium in Huntington Beach.
Presentations are posted for reference only. Please do not copy or redistribute these materials, as they are the sole property of the presenters. Thank you!
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