adult-learners
(7)
Sara Leoni
Sara Leoni is the founder and CEO of Ziplines Education, a Bay Area career accelerator that partners with 30-plus universities to deliver industry-recognized certificate programs in fields like AI, project management, and digital marketing. A former Division I softball player at UNLV and ex-CEO of the $50M course-materials company Rafter, she raised a $6.4M Series A in 2023-2024 to help close the digital skills gap and has helped more than 20,000 adult learners retool their careers. She frames learning as a zipline: intimidating, exhilarating, and continuous, with a clear start and a clear landing.
Ziplines Education
Ziplines Education is a San Carlos, California-based career accelerator that partners with universities to deliver flexible, cohort-based online non-credit certificate courses in high-growth fields like AI, project management, digital marketing, business analytics, and Salesforce administration. Founded in 2017 as GreenFig and relaunched as Ziplines Education in 2024 under CEO Sara Leoni, the company blends live instruction, on-demand content, and real-world work simulations to help adult learners close the gap between traditional education and the skills the digital workforce actually demands.
Archer Education
Archer Education is a higher education growth-enablement company that helps colleges and universities recruit, enroll, and retain students for their online programs. Founded in 2006 as the college-search portal Campus Explorer and rebranded as Archer in 2018, the firm pairs enrollment marketing, admissions support, and data-driven advisory services so institutions can grow online enrollment without building the machinery themselves. Over two decades it says it has partnered with 200+ institutions, managed 1,000+ online programs, and reached more than 20 million adult learners.
Brian Hartnack
Brian Hartnack is the co-founder and CEO of Archer Education, a higher-education growth firm that helps colleges and universities recruit, enroll and retain online and adult learners. A Cornell history major who cut his teeth in the late-90s dot-com scene at eToys, Gifts.com and Rent.com (sold to eBay for $415M in 2005), he launched the company that became Archer in 2006. Two decades on, the firm has worked with 200+ institutions, managed 1,000+ online programs, and connected millions of students to degrees - with Hartnack arguing that the winners in education marketing pair data infrastructure with authentic storytelling.
Risepoint
Risepoint (formerly Academic Partnerships) is a U.S.-based online program management (OPM) company that partners with regional, mostly public universities to develop, launch, market, and scale affordable, workforce-focused online degree programs. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas and owned by the Vistria Group, the company provides marketing, enrollment, student support, faculty support, and technology services so that universities can reach working-adult learners at scale. It works with 100+ university partners across the U.S., UK, and Australia and says it has supported hundreds of thousands of students.
Fernando Bleichmar
Fernando Bleichmar is the CEO of Risepoint, the online program management company formerly known as Academic Partnerships, which helps regional universities build and grow online degree programs for working adults. He joined in 2022 after running the U.S. higher education business at Cengage, serving on the leadership team at Elsevier Health Sciences, and spending his first decade in strategy consulting at Boston Consulting Group. The son of educators who founded a school in Mexico City, he frames the company's work around closing the access and affordability gap in American higher education.
Strayer University
Strayer University is an accredited, primarily online institution founded in 1892 to prepare working adults for careers in business and the professions. Owned by Nasdaq-listed Strategic Education, Inc. (STRA), Strayer offers undergraduate and graduate degrees, certificates, and the Jack Welch Management Institute online EMBA, serving tens of thousands of students across roughly 35 campuses and a large online program.