There are three additional management changes at Blackboard not mentioned in my recent post – two announced over the past week and one announced in April. These changes are worth noting as they further back up the point that Blackboard is in turnaround mode.
What should we expect from the future Blackboard? I believe the best way to understand future changes at Blackboard is to view the CEO transition as the latest move in a corporate turnaround – and an unsurprising move .
The additional management changes:
- Bob Alcorn – chief architect of the Learn product line since 2007, lead architect and designer of Building Blocks, lead developer of CourseInfo, and original member of the Blackboard team – has left the company and will be replaced by David Ashman.
- Siegfried Behrens resigned his position of Global Manager of US Education for Microsoft and joined Blackboard in the new position of President of Global Sales.
- In April Bill Davis became the new CFO, replacing John Kinzer.
There seems to be fairly significant management changes going on, and I would expect more to come once Jay Bhatt is fully in place as the new CEO.
Update: I should clarify that Bob Alcorn’s departure is significant news, but he left for a new opportunity, not directly from a management shake-up.
