Our management team brings together professionals with extensive backgrounds in K-12 education, higher education, business, and technology.

• Stephen M. Smith, Chief Executive Officer
• Shaun Fanning, Executive Vice President
• Todd Bloom Ph.D., Chief Academic Officer
• Linda Trude, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing
• Monica Morrell, Vice President of Professional Services

Stephen M. Smith, Chief Executive Officer

Stephen M. Smith is chief executive officer and co-founder of Naviance and serves as a member of the Hobsons executive board. Prior to Naviance, he led e-learning client engagements for major corporate clients including OgilvyOne Worldwide, IBM, Pfizer, Nestlé, and others.

Previously, Mr. Smith was vice president of digital product development at Peterson's, then a division of The Thomson Corporation, where he played a key role in transforming a traditional print publishing business into the premier on-line services company in the field of education information and admissions. Mr. Smith led a major business development initiative within The Thomson Corporation to develop CollegeQuest.com and to expand petersons.com, which were collectively ranked as one of the top 100 websites by Yahoo! Internet Life. Prior to joining Peterson's, Mr. Smith worked with the Thomson Technology Services Group as a founding member of its Internet consulting practice. Mr. Smith has also served as a practitioner faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University where he taught graduate level coursework in marketing and technology.

Mr. Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history, cum laude, and an MBA from Cornell University.

Back to Top

Shaun Fanning, Executive Vice President

Shaun Fanning is executive vice president and co-founder of Naviance. Prior to Naviance, he led learning-related consulting engagements for K12.com and schoolSTAFF.

Previously, Mr. Fanning was director of business development at Peterson's, then a division of The Thomson Corporation, where he led the development of strategic and promotional partnerships to support Peterson's transformation into a category leading on-line information services company. He served as director of Peterson's consumer marketing division and oversaw a major marketing and public relations campaign supporting the launch of CollegeQuest.com, a service of petersons.com which has become the leading on-line destination for students and parents going through the college admissions process.

Prior to joining Peterson's, Mr. Fanning worked as an analyst with AT&T preparing business cases for a variety of local phone market entry strategies including mergers, acquisitions, resale and new technology deployment. Mr. Fanning earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Cornell University.

Back to Top

Todd Bloom Ph.D., Chief Academic Officer

Todd Bloom Ph.D. is Chief Academic Officer at Naviance where he leads the company's research, advocacy, and academic outreach efforts. Dr. Bloom has extensive experience in the education market having provided leadership and organizational development services to school districts, state departments and research organizations, as well as private education companies. Prior to Naviance, Dr. Bloom was both Chief Academic Officer at Student Paths, a college and life readiness company, and Principal at Blueprint Education Group, a K-12 management consulting firm. To these organizations and their clients, Dr. Bloom brought a deep understanding of K-16 needs and effective strategies for improving organizational performance.

Dr. Bloom earned a Bachelors degree in elementary education from Indiana University, a Master of Education degree from National-Louis University, and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Back to Top

Linda Trude, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing

Linda Trude is senior vice president of sales and marketing at Naviance. In that role, she develops and implements sales and marketing strategy and provides leadership and coordination of all company sales and marketing activities.

Previously, Ms. Trude was vice president of institutional sales for Rosetta Stone, where she headed up the sales and marketing teams that served the company’s education, corporate, government, military, and non-profit clients world-wide. While at Rosetta Stone, she solidified a first-class sales organization, restructuring to better support customers with in-house and field representatives; establishing a marketing team dedicated to institutional markets; formalizing sales processes and support systems; streamlining partnerships; and growing strategic accounts.

Prior to joining Rosetta Stone, Ms. Trude was vice president of Sales and Marketing for ApplyYourself (later acquired by Hobsons), where she successfully combined technology solutions with recruiting and business processes to develop a strong value proposition and a repeatable sales model. Ms. Trude is a graduate of Towson University in Towson, Maryland from which she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. She also holds a Master of Business Administration in marketing from Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland.

Back to Top

Monica Morrell, Vice President of Professional Services

Monica Morrell is vice president of professional services for Naviance. In that role, she leads the company's customer service, training, and consulting units.

Prior to Naviance, Ms. Morrell spent 13 years in various leadership positions within the professional services unit of Microstrategy, a leading global technology company. Most recently she served as vice president of worldwide education services and Microstrategy University, a role in which she was responsible for sales and delivery of the company's extensive global training offerings.

Previously, Ms. Morrell was a systems engineer and trainer at Electronic Data Systems (EDS), now a unit of HP. Ms. Morrell holds a Bachelors degree, summa cum laude, from James Madison University.

Back to Top