David Goodman

Managing Director

With a distinguished career spanning two decades in senior executive roles, David has consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership, successfully steering multiple education and
content businesses to achieve notable success. David is the former CEO of Six Red Marbles, where he established strong customer advocacy, improved systems and processes, and helped lead the business to its highest revenue years in its over 25-year history. David has developed a strong network within all sectors of education and is passionate about delivering on customer expectations. He is a strong advocate for employee empowerment, building and managing organizations where employees feel valued and respected. 

Michele Baird

Executive Vice President, Strategy

Michele has worked in the education space her entire life. She began her career at Pearson and later spent 25 years at Cengage Learning. Michele built a curriculum development and instructional design team at Cengage, where her team designed and delivered over 1000 online courses for institutional partners. Michele joined Six Red Marbles to develop a Higher Education practice and eventually moved into the COO role there, managing K12, Higher Ed and offshore development teams. Most recently, Michele was the CEO at Freedom Learning Group, where she completed an acquisition and merger with Ease Learning.

Shekhar Kapur

Vice President of Operations

Shekhar brings a wealth of expertise and a proven track record in Project and Account Management, Transition Management, Operations, Change Management, and Client Servicing within the Educational Publishing sector, over 16 years of dedicated experience. His exceptional leadership skills, sharp process optimization abilities, and unwavering commitment to nurturing continuous customer engagement underscore his consistent delivery of outstanding results. Shekhar holds a master’s degree in business administration.

Marie McNamara

Vice President, Business Development

Marie spearheads our company’s Business Development efforts, placing a strong emphasis on cultivating meaningful relationships. With a deep understanding of our business partners’ current requirements and a sharp intuition for their future demands, Marie’s primary focus is on meeting and surpassing customer expectations by delivering top-tier content promptly and reliably. With over 25 years of experience in empowering publishers and eLearning companies to realize their visions, Marie brings invaluable expertise to the table. Her foundational years spent in the publishing sector have equipped her with a profound understanding of the industry’s intricacies, enabling her to adeptly advocate for our partners’ needs within our internal teams.

Dena Garger

Vice President, Business Development

Dena has 30+ years’ publishing experience. She leads MPS North America’s project management. Dena is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a successful leader in publishing operations with strength in process development and improvement. She is also DMAIC trained and has experience identifying and leading Lean Six Sigma process re-engineering projects. She’s successfully helped implement new tools and technologies to aid in transforming outdated publishing systems and processes. Dena has held innovative roles in publishing with Sperry Corporation and M. Rosenblatt & Son Naval Architecture and Marine Engineers as well as highlevel roles with Scholastic, Triumph Learning, and McGraw-Hill.

Jillian Almeida

Vice President, Right & Permissions

Jillian has 15+ years’ content licensing experience. She holds a BS in Business and has spent her entire career working in Rights and Permissions, developing several proprietary research and rights management systems. Jillian is experienced in all matters of Rights, Permissions, Licensing, and Intellectual Property laws, rules, and procedures for both K–12 and Higher Education and manages a global team. She’s held prior high-level roles with QBS, Lumina Datamatics, and Pearson Learning Solutions.

Melissa Crouch

Vice President, Project Management

Melissa brings over 20 years of experience in operations, program management, and project management. Beginning her career in the Air Force, she excelled in technology operations, program management, and training development. After military retirement, she joined Freedom Learning Group where she led a team of portfolio and project directors as the Vice President of Operations and Technology. This team created and delivered content for K12, Higher Ed, and corporate teams. She has a strong passion for continuous process improvement and delivering high-quality content that exceeds client expectations. Her academic achievements include Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science in Management and Leadership.

Paula Van Ells

Vice President, Content Development

Paula has over a decade of teaching experience and over two decades of educational publishing experience. Paula was Director of Content Creation for Pearson’s ELT business where she led editorial teams in the U.S., UK, and Poland to build successful preK-adult English language learning products. Most recently, Paula led content creation for Language Testing International’s R & D department which provided editorial and translation services to publishers and industries. At LTI, she also led a global education initiative which brought together students from more than 20 countries for virtual collaborative courses in STEAM, World Languages, Dual Language Immersion, and Social Studies. Paula holds a BA in French from the UMass-Amherst and a Master’s and PhD in French from the UW-Madison.