COMPANY INFORMATION

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Management.

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

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 U.S. 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 also serves as a practitioner faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University where he teaches 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. >> 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. >> top

Anthony Askew, VP Enterprise Sales

Anthony C. Askew is vice president of enterprise sales. Prior to working at Naviance, he directed the high school sales division and business development for Peterson’s, a Nelnet company (formerly Thomson Peterson’s). In addition, he has worked in both higher education administration and secondary education. He has worked in admissions at Carnegie Mellon University, Slippery Rock University, and the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine.  He coordinated advanced academics for the School District of Philadelphia whereby he was responsible for the district-wide implementation of SAT/ACT test prep, dual enrollment, International Baccalaureate, and Advanced Placement programs. 

Mr. Askew holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and communications from Point Park University; he also has teacher certification in secondary education. >> top

Joseph A. Berry, Director of Professional Development

Joseph Berry is director of professional development at Naviance. Mr. Berry’s role includes creating professional development opportunities to support Naviance Network members around the world. He represents Naviance at professional conferences and develops strategic relationships with associations, universities/colleges and governmental agencies. He advocates for the school counselor and articulates their needs and concerns with the purpose of enhancing services for our members.

Prior to joining Naviance, Mr. Berry was a school counselor for 13 years, most recently at Mt. Hebron High School in Howard County, Maryland. He started his career as a middle school counselor, focusing on programs to enhance academic and personal achievement. As a high school counselor, and department chair person for 10 years, he has been involved in all facets of counseling including college advising. Mr. Berry has a broad range of experiences and has always focused on creating programs to improve counseling services for all students. By working with a local foundation, he brought a nationally known author to inspire educators, parents, students and community leaders to increase the academic performance of African American male students. He has presented his programs at a variety of workshops over the years. As a member of the Maryland School Counselors Association he created their first web site by partnering with the University of Maryland. He initiated the pilot program to bring WorkspaceK12 from Naviance to his county’s public school system. By doing so, he was able to significantly improve the level and quality of student services at his high school. With his business background and extensive counseling experience, Mr. Berry brings a uniquely balanced perspective to Naviance.

Mr. Berry earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing from Robert Morris University and a Master of Education degree from The University of Pittsburgh. >> top

Faith Connolly, Ph.D., VP Research & Development

Faith Connolly, Ph.D. is vice president of research and development. Prior to working at Naviance, she directed research and evaluation for Montgomery County Public Schools and Baltimore City Public Schools, Maryland. In addition, she has conducted research in higher education institution such as Baltimore City Community College, the University of Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University. She also led a team redesigning state data reporting systems with the Maryland State Department of Education.

Dr. Connolly received her Ph.D. in Public Policy, Evaluation and Analysis, from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The topic of her dissertation was An Examination of Neighborhood Effects on Attending Higher Education. In addition Dr. Connolly received her BA from Harvard University in geology and has two Master’s degrees, one in secondary education from Hartford University and the other in Information Technology from the Johns Hopkins University. >> top

Archana Mehta, Director of Product Marketing

Archana Mehta is the director of product marketing at Naviance. In this capacity, Ms. Mehta helps to ensure that Naviance products continue to lead the industry.

Prior to joining Naviance, Ms. Mehta was a research and development engineer at Hewlett-Packard in Portland, Oregon. Ms. Mehta worked with a team that revolutionized the next generation of inkjet photo printers. Her design in particular continues to be an integral component in new printers. During her tenure at Hewlett-Packard, Ms. Mehta traveled to Asia extensively, managing the manufacturing process of a line of printers. Before her work at Hewlett-Packard, Ms. Mehta used her knowledge to develop an air and sea propeller for NASA.

Ms. Mehta earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering, summa cum laude, and a Master of Science degree from North Carolina State University. >> top

Christina Pritchett, Director of Institutional Sales

Christina Pritchett is director of institutional sales for Naviance. Her primary objective is to train and manage a dynamic sales team to deliver solutions to enhance the support of counseling and administrative leaders in secondary schools. Ms. Pritchett is motivated by new challenges and opportunities. Prior to joining Naviance, she spent 12 years at Kroll Ontrack where she specialized in building, training, and maintaining sales teams for new products and service offerings. Ms. Pritchett is an entrepreneur at heart and is the owner/founder of two successful businesses.

Christina Pritchett is an alumna of James Madison University where she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in management and a Master of Business Administration degree with a concentration in information security. >> top

Greg M. Smith, Director of Technical Operations

Greg M. Smith is director of technical operations for Naviance. In that role, he oversees all hardware, software, and global network operations for Naviance products.

Prior to Naviance, Mr. Smith led the e-business group at the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, where he was responsible for managing the daily operations for the organization's enterprise systems, its public website, and its application development group. Mr Smith was also a member of the senior IT management team, co-author of the IT Strategic Plan, and contributing author to the Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Plan for the Authority.

Previously, Mr. Smith managed academic computing for the University of Indianapolis where he was responsible for reducing the operating costs by more then 30% while decreasing time to resolution by 20%. He was also the co-author of the university's strategic technology plan.

Mr. Smith holds a Bachelor of Social Work degree from Indiana University, Bloomington. >> top

Don Tollman, VP Enterprise Sales

Don Tollman is vice president of enterprise sales for Naviance. Based in Colorado, his focus is on listening to and understanding current and prospective client needs and demonstrating how Naviance can fulfill those needs.

Prior to joining Naviance, Mr. Tollman served as both an assistant and associate director of Admissions at Colorado State University. During his time at Colorado State, among many other duties he served as non-resident recruitment coordinator, university tuition classification officer, opened and developed a Denver area admissions information office, authored the “Taking the Mystery Out of College Admissions” college planning sessions, created and developed the “Vital Connections” transfer program as well as the “TransCentral” transfer program, “TransAction” transfer workshop, and “TranScript” transfer newsletter. He has visited and interacted with students and high school counselors across the country from Hawaii to New York for over 20 years. His most recent duties at Colorado State included coordination and content development for the “Campus Connections” website, serving as the voice behind “Ask Mr. Spruce” a student oriented information and advice site, and managing recruitment and outreach activities in the Denver-metro suburbs and Southern California. He is a much sought after presenter throughout Colorado and parts of California addressing the college admission process.

Mr. Tollman is a past-president of the Colorado Council on High School/College Relations (CCHS/CR), and has served as chair/co-chair of the Admissions Practices Committee for the past 14 years. He has also been a member of the Professional Development Committee teaching new high school counselors about the relationship between high schools and colleges. Throughout the years he has presented on various topics at NACAC, WACAC, RMACAC, RMACRAO, and Phi Theta Kappa national conferences. Outside the education sector, Mr. Tollman has been a private business owner and consultant.

Mr. Tollman earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from the University of Colorado and holds several certificates from the Professional Development Institute at Colorado State University. >> top