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Our Team
Management Team
 Founder and Chief Executive Officer - Jeff Shelstad
Jeff is a proud native Minnesotan, where they often make them with big, round heads. One potential company name pre-Flat World Knowledge was
Round Head Ed. Jeff’s main passion in life, besides his beautiful family, is golf. Starting a new venture has not been kind to his game. Or so he
maintains…
Jeff brings a 20 year successful record in higher education business publishing to the venture. He’s held positions of increasing
responsibility in sales, marketing, editorial, and senior management. Jeff has personally acquired some of the most successful business
textbook authors in print today. Most recently, Jeff served as Editorial Director at Prentice Hall Business Publishing, a division with
annual sales in the hundreds of millions. He had full P&L responsibility for the division, and managed a team of over sixty Acquisitions
Editors, Development Editors, Media Editors, and Project Managers. Jeff received his Executive MBA from Duke University in 2004. |
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Founder and Chief Marketing Officer - Eric Frank
Eric was born and raised in Boston, and has lived in Philadelphia and New York. Sometimes, he gets confused and thinks
that Pittsburgh is the west coast. He used to have more diverse passions in life, but now, as co-founder of three concurrent startups- two-year old
Miya, one-year old Emma, and Flat World Knowledge, also one, his passions have become singularly focused: the pursuit of sleep. It may be a while yet.
Eric brings an 11 year track record of success in higher education publishing. He has held positions in sales, editorial, and marketing at
Thomson (now Cengage -so much more 2.0-ish, yes?) and Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. Recently, Eric was Director of Marketing for
Prentice Hall Business Publishing, a division with annual sales in the hundreds of millions. There, he managed a team of marketing managers and
marketing communications staff, and had overall responsibility for strategy, budget, staffing and execution. Eric’s group had dotted line
responsibility for training and supporting over 160 sales representatives.
It must be said that given a choice, Eric much prefers a hug from his co-founder, Mayu, of the non-Flat World ventures.
That said, a nice hug from Jeff every once in a while is okay, too. |
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Chief Technology Officer - Brad Felix
Brad was born and raised in New York, and has lived in Boston and Denver. He tries to act cool, like he was just like the other kids growing up.
We see right through it, though. The giveaway is when he starts talking to us at lunch about his (long gone) youth building and racing remote
controlled cars and programming his Commodore 64. Yeah. Anyway. Brad brings something rare to the table - a trifecta of deep engineering skills,
supreme competence in building and managing teams, and a passion for education. And it helps that he’s cool as a cucumber when the heat is on.
Brad brings over 13 years of experience building, managing, and teaching about (and with) educational technology. He is credited
with co-designing and developing one of the world's first web-based learning management systems as VP of Technology for eCollege
(recently sold to Pearson Education for a pile of dough. Brad didn’t get much of it. Hmm. Maybe he’s not as smart as we thought).
In that role, he hired and built development, quality assurance, design, hosting, and technical support teams to serve the burgeoning
product line as the company grew from 4 to over 400 employees. Following eCollege, Brad worked for a startup with a cool name - Juice.
Then, his love of teaching took him in to the classroom for a few years. His love of exceedingly hard work, low pay, and total ambiguity
about the future brought him back to the world of new ventures. We’re glad. Brad has a Masters Degree in Instructional Technology from Columbia University. |
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Chief Openness Officer - David Wiley, Ph.D.
David, we believe, might be the world’s first Openness Officer. We’d like to take credit for the title, but it was
David’s idea. Guess that’s why he’s the one with the initials after his name. As soon as we heard it, we were sold. Now we are trying to figure
out what it means.
David is an Associate Professor of Instructional Technology at Utah State University. He brings deep experience building and disseminating technology to
sustainably advance open education. David's work in reusable educational materials, social support for learning, and open access policies have won him
numerous awards, including a National Science Foundation CAREER grant. He is also Evangelist and Idea Guy at the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning
(where he was formerly Director), an organization dedicated to advancing open education and expanding access to educational opportunity worldwide. His
work has been covered in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, The London Financial Times, The Hindu, WIRED, and other media outlets. David retains his
professorial and strategorial (just wanted to say "strategorial") roles while working for Flat World. We consider ourselves lucky to get a piece of him.
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Advisors
We are privileged to be able to work closely with world class business experts. Our advisors provide us with active,
in-depth consulting in their respective areas of expertise.
Dr. Jeffry Timmons - Lead Advisor
Jeff truly practiced what he preached and taught. His common sense advice was exactly what two new entrepreneurs needed. We grew considerably from Jeff’s mentoring and advice. Plus, he was just the nicest guy one could ever have met.
Unfortunately, Jeff passed away suddenly on April 8, 2008 at his winter home in Bray’s Island, SC. But as long as Flat World Knowledge is a company, we will benefit immensely from his 14 months of common sense advice and insight. His impact on us was tremendous and will continue. We miss him terribly.
Dr. Timmons was Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College. Inc. magazine called him “The Johnny Appleseed of Entrepreneurship Education”. He served as a charter board member of the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. He was the creator of and dean of faculty emeritus for the Kauffman Fellows Program. Dr. Timmons authored several books including the leading textbook New Venture Creation, 8th ed. (2009), with Stephen Spinelli. He also co-authored Business Plans That Work (2004) and How to Raise Capital: Techniques and Strategies for Financing and Valuing Your Small Business (2005) with Stephen Spinelli and Andrew Zacharakis.
For nearly forty years Jeff had been immersed in the world of entrepreneurship as an investor, director or advisor in private companies and investment funds including Cellular One in Boston, New Hampshire and Maine; the Boston Communications Group; BCI Advisors, Inc.; Spectrum Equity Investors; Internet Securities, Inc.; Chase Capital Partners; and others.
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Dr. Shahid Ansari - Accounting and Target Costing
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Dr. Shahid L. Ansari is a Professor of Accounting at Babson College. He received his Ph.D. in Accounting and Organizational Behavior
from Columbia University and has taught in graduate and undergraduate programs at UCLA, NYU, and the Naval Postgraduate School. Dr.
Ansari worked closely with Royal Dutch Shell’s Leadership and Performance Organization to develop a cost leadership program. Other
notable organizations with whom Dr. Ansari has worked include Northrop Grumman, Sun Microsystems, Hughes Electronics, US Department
of Defense, Xerox, Champion Papers, 3-M Corporation, UNILEVER, Arthur Andersen, Meissen Porzellan Manufaktur, and COMSTAR.
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Mark Coker - Public Relations and Launch Strategy
Mark is an active and successful entrepreneur, angel investor, and business advisor to technology startups. Mark founded, and
remains the sole owner of, Dovetail Public Relations, an award-winning technology PR firm based in Silicon Valley, specializing
in launching, building and sustaining venture-backed startups and market leaders. Mark also serves as a contributing writer for VentureBeat.
Mark is currently launching his next startup, Smashwords, a Silicon Valley digital publishing startup that aims to change the way
books are published, sampled, marketed and sold. Previously, Mark founded BestCalls.com. BestCalls was acquired by Shareholder.com
in April 2003. Mark previously served on the board of directors IP Metrics in Dallas, which saw a successful exit.
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Dr. Eric Denna - Technology and Strategy
Eric is Chief Information Officer (CIO) in Residence at The Research Board, a research group for CIO’s of the Fortune 200. He was formerly
CIO of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Times Mirror Higher Education, and Brigham Young University.
In addition to directly leading massive technology operations, Eric has also worked as a consultant to organizations helping them develop and implement
innovative business, information, and decision processes. Some of his clients included IBM, Price Waterhouse, Sears, Geneva Steel, Scott Paper, the
State of Washington, Times Mirror, Utah Technology Finance Corporation, Novell, the State of Michigan, and Farm Management Corporation. He is also a
former member of Patty Seybold's Pioneer Group, a technology think tank in Boston.
Eric is an author of numerous books, including the college textbook Accounting, Information Technology, and Business Solutions. He is known for
challenging traditional thinking about how organizations work and how they use information technology. We like that he challenges ours.
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Sharon Koch - Sales and Marketing Campaign Planning
Sharon began her career in higher education publishing 13 years ago as a sales representative for Addison Wesley Longman.
She consistently blew out her sales numbers, and quickly rose through the sales ranks. Then she found her home in marketing.
She spent the next 8 years marketing in high profile, competitive markets like Computer Information Systems, Management Information Systems,
Finance Accounting and Economics. She received a steady stream of awards during this time, and is widely recognized as one of the top marketing talents
in the industry. Most recently, Sharon served as a Director of Marketing for division of Pearson Education.
She left her Director of Marketing role to manage (or be managed by) her 2 newest editions; her children Wes and Tessa. When she is not
working for them, she is training for her 5th marathon, supporting Penn State and Pittsburgh sports teams and enjoying her family. If she could
trade jobs with anyone for a week she would trade with: Chris Berman, Tina Fey or Ben Bernanke.
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Dr. Morgan McGuire - Technology and Interactive Authoring Tools
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Dr. McGuire is an Assistant Professor at Williams College. He received his PhD from Brown University in 2006. He is already considered a
leader in the world of 3D Graphics and gaming. He is co-chair of the 2008 ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, and sits on
the editorial board of publisher A. K. Peters' game development series. At Williams, he teaches computer graphics and game design and hosts
a colloquium on the social impact of entertainment technology. Prof. McGuire has consulted for the games industry on titles including Titan
Quest (2006), ROBLOX (2005), and Zen of Sudoku (2006) and served as a senior software architect at several graphics-related companies including
PeakStream, Curl, and Oculus Technologies. In addition to his gaming interests, he has a strong interest in creating collaborative authoring
tools for interactive content, and is conducting leading research in this area. He serves as a sounding board to Brad, our CTO, and advises
Flat World in the areas of interactive authoring tools, and the use of games in higher education.
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Dr. Michael R. Solomon - Marketing and Branding
Michael R. Solomon, Ph.D. is Professor of Marketing and Director of the Institute for Lifestyle Research at Saint Joseph’s University.
His research interests include consumer behavior and lifestyle issues, and branding strategy. He has delivered invited lectures on these
subjects throughout the world, and he recently completed an elected six-year term on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Marketing Science.
Dr. Solomon has been recognized as one of the ten most productive scholars in the field of advertising and marketing communications.
Dr. Solomon’s textbook, Consumer Behavior, published by Prentice Hall, is widely used in universities throughout North America, Europe,
and Australasia and is now in its eighth edition. His text, Marketing: Real People, Real Choices was published in its fifth edition by Prentice Hall
in January of 2007 and is currently one of the most widely-adopted Principles of Marketing texts in the U.S.A. His trade book, Conquering Consumerspace:
Marketing Strategies for a Branded World, (AMACOM) was named one of the best business books of 2004.
Dr. Solomon is a frequent contributor to mass media, with feature articles appearing in Psychology Today, Gentleman's Quarterly and Savvy.
He has been quoted in Allure, Elle, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Mirabella, Newsweek, The New York Times, Self, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.
He frequently appears on television and radio to comment on consumer behavior issues, including "The Today Show," "Good Morning America," CNBC, Channel One,
"Inside Edition," "Newsweek on the Air," The Wall Street Journal Radio Network, the Entrepreneur Sales and Marketing Show, the WOR Radio Network and National
Public Radio.
Dr. Solomon has provided input as a marketing consultant to a variety of organizations. Clients have included Armstrong World Industries,
Bayer Healthcare, Gap, Inc., Hakuhodo Advertising (Tokyo), H&M, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Living Tomorrow, Prudential Securities, State Farm, and
United Airlines. He is a Managing Director of Mind/Share, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in consumer research and lifestyle marketing issues for such
clients as DuPont, Black & Decker, eBay, PPG Industries, Visa, VF Corp., Timberland, and Calvin Klein.
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Jane Swift - Business Strategy, Public Relations, Venture Capital
Jane earned her place in history as the first woman to serve as Governor of Massachusetts and as the first governor in the
United States to give birth while in office, to twin girls.
Today, Swift provides expert advice and guidance to early stage education companies as the Founder of WNP Consulting, LLC. From 2003-2006,
Swift was a General Partner at Arcadia Partners, the leading venture capital firm focused exclusively on the education industry. Swift, who has received
six honorary doctorates and numerous awards, received a Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies from Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1987.
She has held fellowships at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and at Williams College.
Swift remains actively involved in politics by serving on the Board of Directors of the Republican Leadership Council, and in advisory board
capacities with the Republican Majority for Choice, and the WISH List. She is currently providing education policy advice to the McCain Presidential Campaign.
A native of North Adams, Massachusetts, Swift resides with her husband, Chuck Hunt, and their three daughters in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
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Dr. Jeff Tanner - Sales and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Dr. Tanner is Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean at Baylor University. He is an internationally recognized expert in sales and sales
management. He is author or co-author of eleven books, including the best selling textbook, Selling: Building Partnerships and the leading
relationship marketing textbook, Business Marketing: Connecting Strategy, Relationships and Learning. His books have been translated into
several languages and distributed in over 30 countries. His eleventh book, The Hard Truth About Soft Selling, co-authored with noted sales
psychologist George Dudley, is due out this summer.
Tanner spent eight years in marketing and sales with Rockwell International and Xerox Corporation. In 1988, he earned his Ph.D. from the
University of Georgia and joined the faculty at Baylor University where he currently serves as the Research Director of the Center for Professional Selling.
In addition to writing and research, Dr. Tanner maintains an active consulting and training practice. Recent clients include IBM, Hillcrest
Medical System and others. He is the managing partner of Team Fulcrum, which conducts sales training and marketing research and is a founding principal
and Research Director of BPT Partners, the premier training and education company focused on advancing the skills and competency of professionals in the CRM industry.
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