Group President & CEO
Assessment & Information
Doug Kubach joined Pearson in May 2000 as senior vice president strategy and chief technology officer for Pearson Education. He was appointed president and CEO of Pearson’s U.S. Assessments & Testing businesses in November 2003, renamed Assessment & Information (A&I) in 2007. Since 2004 Pearson’s A&I group has grown to become the leading assessment and information systems provider in the U.S. education market.
Before joining Pearson, Kubach was the chief technology officer for McGraw-Hill Education. Prior to his eight years at McGraw-Hill, Doug was a senior executive in the Harcourt School division and vice president, operations for The Psychological Corporation. Kubach is a summa cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College.
Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer
Software and Technology Services
Assessment & Information
Satbir Bedi joined Pearson in 2004 as a vice president of product management and strategy where he initiated and guided research and development efforts for all technology related, client-facing products. In 2006, he took on his current role as senior vice president and chief technology officer for Software and Technology Services, part of the Assessment & Information group’s shared services organization, where he provides organizational leadership to effectively align software development, product management, process engineering, and quality management.
Prior to joining Pearson, Bedi served as executive director of media technology at McGraw-Hill where he directed product development operations at multiple facilities and provided leadership and direction for a large workforce of engineers, project managers, facilities managers, and other media technology professionals.
Bedi has a Bachelor of Commerce with Honors from the University of Delhi, India, and a Master of Commerce in Accounting and Business Statistics from the University of Rajasthan, India. He also holds an M.S. in Computer and Information Sciences from Temple University.
Vice President
Marketing Services
Assessment & Information
Robin Brophy has over 25 years of experience in the development and management of marketing programs and services. Over the past 12 years at Pearson she has held a variety of positions, including senior project director for marketing programs in the Commercial Services Division, manager of creative services, and marketing director for the business known as Pearson Educational Measurement. She became the vice president of marketing in November 2005. In 2008, her group’s area of focus expanded to serve the Assessment & Information group of Pearson. As vice president, she directs A&I Marketing Services, part of the A&I group’s shared services organization.
Prior to joining Pearson, Brophy served as Marketing Manager at The University of Iowa University Life Centers for seven years, where she directed strategic marketing plans for all business units of the operation and provided leadership and direction for marketing and design staff.
Brophy earned her Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in marketing from The University of Iowa and her Bachelor of Arts in business and music from the University of Northern Iowa.
President
Educational Assessment
Assessment & Information
Kevin Brueggeman joined Harcourt Assessment, Inc., which is now Pearson, in 2006 as president of the education division, which was comprised of three businesses: state testing, norm-reference assessments, and formative assessments. While in this position, Brueggeman contributed to the successful financial turn-around of the education division in 2007, which included returning the norm-reference assessment business to significant profitability in 2007 from a loss position in 2006. Brueggeman currently leads the Educational Assessment business, which serves K-12 with educational assessment, data management and personalized learning solutions for schools and local education agencies.
Prior to joining Pearson, Brueggeman accrued seven years of experience as president at several other companies in the education and testing industries. He rejuvenated growth at AGS Publishing from 2003 to 2005 where sales increased more than 50 percent and profit jumped 100 percent. From 1999 to 2003 Kevin helped form, and then led Experior Assessments, LLC as president and CEO.
Brueggeman completed the Minnesota Executive Program at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
President
Edustructures
Assessment & Information
Steve Curtis has more than 25 years of experience managing the development of software applications and solutions in the K-12 education software market. As president, he oversees all daily operations of the Edustructures business, where he most recently led the acquisition of National Transcript Center for Pearson.
Curtis has held executive positions at WICAT (World Institute for Computer Assisted Teaching), Jostens Learning, and PlaNet Software. In 2001, Curtis and his partners founded Edustructures, a leading provider of standards-based, enterprise interoperability solutions for the PK-20 education market. Edustructures is a driving force behind the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) standard, and has been involved in hundreds of SIF implementations throughout the U.S. and abroad. Curtis is a founding member of the SIF Association Board of Directors where he has led the legal sub-committee of the SIF board during a critical time in the evolution of SIF, and has been instrumental in the formation of the Schools Interoperability Framework Association.
Vice President
Human Resources
Assessment & Information
Darlene Feldick has more than 30 years experience at Pearson, serving in a variety of capacities in human resources. Feldick is responsible for the compensation, benefits, recruitment, communications, statutory reporting, employee relations, training and development of the approximately 3,500 regular employees and over 20,000 temporary workers and contractors. She is also responsible for participating with the senior management team in the area of business development.
Feldick has working knowledge of French, German, Spanish and limited Italian. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado with a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Studies and Industrial Relations.
President
School Systems
Assessment & Information
Paul D. Fletcher is president and CEO of Pearson's School Systems group, the leading provider of student information systems and services. Pearson’s world-class information solutions connect educators, parents and students and enable student achievement through informed decision making.
Fletcher joined Pearson as the School Systems CFO in February 2007 and was promoted to COO in January 2008. He was named president and CEO in September 2008 where he is focused on reinventing the way School Systems develops and delivers innovative technology solutions to education agencies.
Prior to Pearson, Fletcher spent over ten years with Intel Corporation, where he held several leadership roles in product development, manufacturing, information technology, and mergers & acquisitions.
Fletcher graduated from UCLA with a double major in Chemistry and Economics and has a Master of Business Administration from UC-Davis.
President
Evaluation Systems
Assessment & Information
As president and co-founder of National Evaluation Systems, now the Evaluation Systems group of Pearson, Bill Gorth brings more than 30 years of experience to the design and management of large-scale, high-stakes testing programs. He worked directly on NES’s first pioneering teacher certification testing program in 1976 and personally designed procedures and techniques for state-based, customized educator certification test development and administration that have since become standard in the field.
As chief executive officer of Evaluation Systems, Gorth is responsible for strategic planning, program development, and financial management. In supervising numerous projects involving development of criterion-referenced educator licensing examinations, Gorth has engaged in planning, objective and test item development, analysis, and reporting to the client.
Prior to joining Pearson, Gorth served as a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst for five years, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses and seminars. While at the university, Gorth was director of the Center for Educational Research for two years. He has a Ph.D. in Educational Research from Stanford University, and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Amherst College/State University of New York at Buffalo.
Senior Vice President
Organizational Quality
Assessment & Information
Jim Hummer joined Pearson in November 2006 as vice president of organizational quality for the Assessment & Information group of Pearson. In December 2008 he earned the title Senior Vice President of Organizational Quality. He is responsible for the supervision and execution of A&I’s quality and improvement strategies.
Prior to joining Pearson, Hummer worked in the aerospace industry for 25 years, holding a variety of leadership positions, including international director, quality and improvement for Thales Air Traffic Management; chief information officer for Vermeer Manufacturing; director, quality and IS for Thales Air Traffic Management; and program manager for Wilcox Electric.
Hummer earned his Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Missouri in 1989 and his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Missouri in 1984. He also holds two professional certifications; he was certified by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) as a certified manager of quality/organizational excellence (CMQ/OE) in 2004 and by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as a project management professional (PMP) in 2000.
President
State Services
Assessment & Information
Darice Keating joined Pearson in 1999 as vice president of state assessments for the Midwest region, where she oversaw the planning and implementation of state assessment projects for programs in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.
In 2002, she became vice president of program management where she oversaw program management staff and the fulfillment and delivery of all state assessment contracts at what was then Pearson Educational Measurement. In 2007, Keating moved into her current role as senior vice president and general manager, and now president, for the State Services group of Pearson, where she provides senior management oversight for contract fulfillment and business development for large-scale state programs.
Prior to joining Pearson, Keating served as operations manager for the Eastern region for Sylvan Learning Systems and as a consultant/trainer on student progress for public and private school teachers. Prior to her 13 years with Sylvan Learning Systems, Keating taught language arts and reading for grades six and seven.
She holds a Master of Public Administration from Drake University with an emphasis in Executive Development and Policy and a Bachelor of Arts in Education with an emphasis in Language Arts from Buena Vista College.
Senior Vice President
Operations and Scoring
Assessment & Information
Kate Minette has more than 14 years experience with Pearson. Prior to her current role, Minette held the vice president of operations, scoring, and quality position. She now leads the integration of training functions across the Assessment & Information group as senior vice president. The operations and scoring group provides support services to Pearson’s assessment programs in forms production, digital printing, packaging and distribution, security tracking, scanning, editing, performance scoring, report production, process engineering, and quality management.
Prior to joining Pearson in 1994, Minette was the manager of human resources at Controlofax Corp. She has also worked in human resources for Prairieland Consultants and Unisys.
Kate has a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Journalism from Drake University and a Master of Arts in Organizational Communication from the University of Northern Iowa.
President & CEO
Clinical Assessment/Worldwide
Assessment & Information
Aurelio Prifitera joined Harcourt Assessment, now Pearson, in 1985 and was named president of The Psychological Corporation, a division of which included both the domestic and international clinical businesses. Previously he was a vice president and director of its psychological measurement and human resource measurement groups. As a senior project director, he developed intellectual, personality and neuropsychological assessments, and coordinated national standardization and validation of psychological assessments.
Prifitera is a licensed psychologist and a registered health service provider in psychology and for a brief time had a private practice in clinical psychology. Formerly a staff clinical psychologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Medical Center, Prifitera also served as staff psychologist at Highland Hospital in Asheville, N.C., and adjunct faculty member at Duke University Medical School.
Prifitera earned his doctorate in clinical psychology at Loyola University and a master's degree in psychology at the University of Illinois. He also holds a master's degree in social science from the University of Chicago, as well as a master's degree in business administration from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology at Syracuse University.
President
National Services
Assessment & Information
Jack Stange has more than 34 years experience at Pearson, serving in a variety of capacities in the company’s school assessment business. From 1994-2003, he served as vice president of publisher services for Pearson where he managed the overall business relationship with The College Board and Harcourt Assessments. In 2003 he became vice president of the national accounts group where he oversaw business relationships with major educational test publishers, including all aspects of business development, program management, and program fulfillment.
In 2007, Stange took on his current role as senior vice president and general manager, now president, for National Services where he provides overall leadership for the National Services group, which supports contracts with educational test publishers and regional and national testing consortiums.
Stange’s extensive experience in large-scale assessments includes the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program, and the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) program. Stange graduated from The University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies.
President
Knowledge Technologies
Assessment & Information
Lynn Streeter is president of Knowledge Technologies (KT), a technology-based group of Pearson that creates innovative online educational applications based on its techniques for automatic text understanding. KT does assessments of written language for formative and summative applications.
Streeter has over 20 years of management experience having managed large research and development groups in human computer interaction, artificial intelligence, software engineering and development at Bell Laboratories and Bellcore. At U.S. WEST she was the general manager of the exploratory software R&D division. She has been the principal investigator on many military contracts involving officer training applications, authentic assessment of military leadership, field trials of essay scoring technology for military officers.
Streeter earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and a B.A. with honors from the University of Michigan. She attended the Stanford Executive Program and has advanced computer science training and experience.
Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Assessment & Information
Bhadresh Sutaria Joined Pearson in July 2009. He is responsible for all financial matters for Pearson’s Assessment & Information group. This includes the areas of planning and analysis, financial reporting, financial stewardship, cash management; and financial strategy. In addition, Sutaria oversees all merger and acquisitions for A&I group from the financial perspective.
Prior to joining Pearson, Sutaria worked for YRC Worldwide as Sr. Vice President & CFO of YRC Logistics and Roadway and as Corporate Controller & Chief Accounting Officer. Sutaria led finance transformation, major profit turn around, and SOX implementation during his tenure with YRC Worldwide. In addition, Sutaria held progressively responsible positions at Mascon and Monsanto.
Sutaria has undergraduate degrees in Commerce and Law from Gujarat University in India, Graduate degrees in Accounting & Tax from University of Illinois and an Executive MBA from Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University. Sutaria brings broad global experience in finance, operations and general management in Transportation & Logistics, Software Services, Life Sciences, and Chemical industries.
Executive Vice President
Test, Measurement & Research Services
Assessment & Information
Dr. Jon Twing brings more than 20 years of assessment experience to overseeing the performance of all test development and psychometric activities at Pearson. As executive vice president for Test, Measurement & Research Services, part of the Assessment & Information group’s shared services organization, Twing provides leadership in growth and publishing strategies and business development. He has also made numerous presentations to education agencies and officials regarding test development and measurement best practices.
Before joining Pearson in 1996, Twing was senior project director in Psychometrics and Technological Applications at The Psychological Corporation/Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement. He has also served as an instructor at The University of Iowa, Trinity University, and Coe College.
Jon has a B.S. in Psychology and Business from Central Michigan University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Educational Measurement and Statistics from The University of Iowa.