Credly Expands Leadership Team as Demand for Verified Skills and Credentials Grows

Credly, the world’s largest network of talent with verified skills, announces the addition of several industry leaders to its growing team. The new executives join at a time of increasing demand for digital credentials to recognize skills and certifications. Credly has nearly doubled the number of organizations on its network in the last year, and new revenue growth and net renewal rates of well over 100% this year validate that Credly is building a human capital platform that delivers significant value to network members and the labor market at large.

New team members bring extensive operational, scaling and strategic experience, as well as deep domain expertise in the talent, HR, and learning-to-employment ecosystem. The new appointments include: Donna Koppensteiner as chief revenue officer; Bailey Showalter as vice president of Talent Solutions; and Jamie Farrell to Credly’s board of directors. These executives join a team that has already grown 30% since the start of the year.

As operations scale, Credly continues to focus on its mission of delivering positive career outcomes by helping organizations make better human capital decisions based on real-time, trusted data about what people actually know and can do.

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“The growing demand for Credly’s services is being driven by the massive move to skills-based learning and hiring; the rapid growth of interest in short-form credentials that signal readiness for jobs; and the acceleration of major changes within the labor market over the last year, including a focus on retention, upskilling, talent mobility, equity, and the demand for a more humane and human company culture,” says Jonathan Finkelstein, CEO of Credly. “As a mission-driven company, we are grateful to welcome new colleagues who share our sense of purpose and have the skills and expertise to help us fulfill it at scale.”

Koppensteiner joins Credly from Interviewstream where she served as chief revenue officer. She previously held senior leadership roles at workforce mobility company Motus (formerly Runzheimer), Bretford, and Rand McNally, where she helped lead the growth of their data services business. With more than 20 years of global sales and marketing leadership experience, Koppensteiner has deep expertise across every aspect of the client lifecycle. Her customer-centric and data-driven approach to growth, coupled with her deep experience in HR tech, will be an asset to Credly’s growth initiatives where she will oversee all aspects of the customer journey.

“At a time when so many key workforce trends are converging on what Credly offers, the company is incredibly well-positioned to continue to deliver growing value to its rapidly expanding network of customers,” says Koppensteiner. “Credly’s solutions show a commitment to advancing the needs of the global talent ecosystem. As someone who cares deeply about helping every individual achieve their full potential, I am inspired by Credly’s vision, what the company has already achieved, and where we are all taking it next.”

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Showalter most recently led the Incubator Global Commercialization team at Indeed, where she brought new products to market from conception, proving product-market fit, and bringing sales to a global scale. Showalter’s combination of strategic, commercialization, and go-to-market experience is being brought to bear as the leader of Credly’s Talent Solutions team, which is focused on growth initiatives that help people connect to the right opportunity at the right time on the basis of their verified skills.

“Hiring, retaining, and deploying qualified talent with just the right skills has never been more urgent, nor ripe for improvement,” says Showalter. “An invigorated focus in the labor market around diversity, equity, and inclusion has spotlighted the need to rely on better signals for hiring and deploying talent, over outdated approaches that perpetuate systemic bias. Credly is uniquely positioned to fundamentally change this equation, and I’m delighted to be on this team working to deliver on this promise.”

Farrell currently serves as the chief revenue officer for Emeritus.org and joins the Credly board of directors with deep expertise operating at the intersection of learning and employment. As the Founding COO, and then CRO of Trilogy Education (which was sold to 2U for $750m), Farrell focused on filling digital skill gaps in the workforce by partnering with universities to prepare individuals for millions of in-demand jobs. Previously, she held senior leadership roles at General Assembly (acquired by Adecco) and 2U (IPO), among others in the growing learning-to-employment sector.

“One of the constants in my professional life has been a focus on impact-driven business models, driving outcomes that are defined by how much we change people’s lives for the better,” says Farrell. “Credly has built a truly unique business, focused on achieving positive career impact for individuals and rewiring how businesses make talent decisions to make them more efficient and more equitable. I’m eager to be part of the journey, and help Credly empower people to be the best, most successful versions of themselves in the future of work.”

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