
For a decade, Tanya White entered technology companies during their messiest chapters, steadied the marketing function, and handed it back. Then OpenSesame gave the self-described paratrooper a reason to unpack.

Don Spear is the co-founder and CEO of OpenSesame, the Portland-based marketplace that lets companies find, buy, and manage elearning courses the way people buy songs on iTunes. A Rice University engineer and Harvard MBA, he spent decades scaling companies - from PetSmart through its IPO to Banfield Pet Hospital's expansion from 4 to 250 locations - before founding BlueVolt and then OpenSesame in 2010. Today he leads a catalog of tens of thousands of courses and an AI-driven push to make workplace learning easier to find and use.