By Dil Sidhu, Chief Content Officer at Coursera

Shira Lee Katz joins us as Head of Content Strategy and Business Insights; Nick LaRusso appointed as Head of University Partnerships

Coursera’s learner community is growing rapidly — together with 190 university and industry partners, we now serve more than 42 million learners across the globe. In addition to thousands of open courses, we also offer a variety of certificates, Specializations, and degrees to serve learners wherever they are in their career. And this wouldn’t have been possible without content from some of the world’s best universities and industry educators.

Collaborating with educators to provide learners with top-quality content remains at the core of our strategy. To take our efforts to the next level, I’m excited to announce two key hires within our content and partnerships teams: Shira Lee Katz is our new Head of Content Strategy and Business Insights, and Nick LaRusso joins us as our new Head of University Partnerships.

Shira has an impressive background in content strategy within both technology and education. She’s held various senior roles at Netflix, where she was a strategic lead for the Kids, Teens, and Family vertical. Prior to that, she spent six years at Common Sense Media where, as Senior Director of Education Content, she launched their edtech and consumer review channels, and created their K-12 digital citizenship curriculum. In her new role at Coursera, Shira will lead our approach to identifying and sourcing the most relevant, cutting-edge content for our learners. Shira’s deep academic roots, including a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will be a great asset to the team as she helps define and fuel the content engine.

Nick comes to us with significant experience in higher education and an understanding of how to equip universities to serve the nontraditional student population. Most recently he led a sales team at Ruffalo Noel Levitz, focused on enrollment management practices for public and private universities. Before that, he was responsible for partnership development with universities at Pearson’s Online Program Management division. As Head of University Partnerships at Coursera, Nick will focus on nurturing and strengthening our relationships with partners as we work toward a shared goal of providing learners with access to a world-class education.

Changing the way the world learns is no easy feat and, while great work is already being done at Coursera, there’s still so much more to accomplish. As Coursera grows, we’re looking to build deeper relationships with all of our partners on an international scale. Both Shira and Nick will be crucial to our approach as we continue to serve learners across the globe with flexible, high-quality learning experiences. I’m thrilled to welcome them to the team. Onwards!

The post Coursera Expands Leadership in Content Strategy and University Partnerships appeared first on Coursera Blog.