Leadership
Rachel Romer
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Jonathan Marek
Chief Customer Officer
Paul Freedman
President and Head of Learning Marketplace
Bijal Shah
Chief Experience Officer and Head of Platform
Greg Siegel
Chief Business Officer
Prior to Guild, Greg spent the last decade at Applied Predictive Technologies (APT), a software-as-a-service firm which enables global Fortune 2000 companies to predict the impact of key business changes through in-market experiments. During his tenure as SVP at APT, Greg built and led various parts of the go-to-market, including strategy, operations, and sales. In 2015, Greg led the sale of APT to Mastercard for $600M, and the subsequent merger of the teams. Greg holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia, where he was a Jefferson Scholar.
Our Board
Ken Chenault
Leighanne Levensaler
Wesley Chan
Janine McGrath Shelffo
Byron Deeter
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
Jonathan Marek
Chief Customer Officer
Jonathan leads the teams at Guild that work with our employer partners and their employees to enable career mobility through access to education, skills, and career pathways. He was previously the General Manager for the Employer Partner Services team.
Prior to Guild, Jonathan served as SVP of Strategy for Mastercard’s Data & Services Business. Before that, as Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Retail & Restaurants at Applied Predictive Technologies (APT), Jonathan led the verticalization of APT’s client sales, marketing, and service. He also spent more than eight years at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman).
Jonathan holds a B.S. in Mathematics (with Honors and Distinction) and an A.B. in Philosophy from Stanford University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
Paul Freedman
President, Learning Marketplace
As an undergraduate at The University of Chicago, Paul founded his first company, Academic Engine, which pioneered the application of natural language processing to college enrollment (acquired by LON: DMGT). He went on to lead Hobson’s fast-growing student recruiting business, before founding online college Altius Education (acquired by Datamark), and Practice (acquired by NYT: INST). In 2014, he founded Entangled Group (acquired by Guild Education in 2020). A sought-after commentator on the trends and technologies that are transforming education and employment, Paul’s commentary has appeared in Forbes, Tech Crunch, RealClear Education, Inside Higher Ed, and The Chronicle, among others.
Rachel Romer
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Prior to founding Guild, Rachel was the CEO of Student Blueprint, led student services at American Honors, and worked for the 2008 Obama campaign before serving in the Obama White House. She and her co-founder, Brittany, were previously selected for Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list, and The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce named Guild as the 2017 Top Woman-Owned Business of the Year. Rachel holds an M.B.A. from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business as well as an M.A. in Education and B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University.
Natalie McCullough
Senior Vice President, Business Operations
Natalie joined Guild in 2020 where she leads Guild’s employer facing teams, driving the company’s go-to-market and growth efforts. She is a veteran executive and business leader with a track record of growth and a career that’s focused on technology and the future of work. Prior to Guild she served as President and COO of Domino Data Lab, a provider of an industry-leading data science platform, served as General Manager of Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics at Microsoft and helped pioneer people analytics products in Microsoft’s Office365 Suite. Natalie also served as Chief Revenue Officer at VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics company acquired by Microsoft, and spent more than five years at McKinsey & Company. She serves as Co-Chair of the Board for Outward Bound California, and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard.
Bijal Shah
Chief Experience Officer and Head of Platform
Bijal has significant experience leading multi-disciplinary technology teams. Prior to joining Guild, Bijal was SVP of Analytics & Data Science at Ibotta, and worked on the Global Corporate Strategy team at Visa, where she was responsible for Visa’s post-IPO organizational restructuring, repricing, and product innovation strategies. Bijal serves on the Board of Directors of Girls Inc. of Metro Denver, an organization focused on inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold. Bijal holds a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management.
Meet the team that’s leading innovation across the Guild platform.
Executive Leadership Team
We’ve partnered with leading investors who are deeply committed to Guild’s double bottom line.
Greg Siegel
Chief Business Officer
Lorna Hagen
Chief People Officer
Natalie McCullough
Senior Vice President, Business Operations
Natalie joined Guild in 2020 where she leads Guild’s employer facing teams, driving the company’s go-to-market and growth efforts. She is a veteran executive and business leader with a track record of growth and a career that’s focused on technology and the future of work. Prior to Guild she served as President and COO of Domino Data Lab, a provider of an industry-leading data science platform, served as General Manager of Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics at Microsoft and helped pioneer people analytics products in Microsoft’s Office365 Suite. Natalie also served as Chief Revenue Officer at VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics company acquired by Microsoft, and spent more than five years at McKinsey & Company. She serves as Co-Chair of the Board for Outward Bound California, and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard.
Greg Siegel
Chief Business Officer
Prior to Guild, Greg spent the last decade at Applied Predictive Technologies (APT), a software-as-a-service firm which enables global Fortune 2000 companies to predict the impact of key business changes through in-market experiments. During his tenure as SVP at APT, Greg built and led various parts of the go-to-market, including strategy, operations, and sales. In 2015, Greg led the sale of APT to Mastercard for $600M, and the subsequent merger of the teams. Greg holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia, where he was a Jefferson Scholar.
Natalie McCullough
Senior Vice President, Business Operations
Natalie joined Guild in 2020 where she leads Guild’s employer facing teams, driving the company’s go-to-market and growth efforts. She is a veteran executive and business leader with a track record of growth and a career that’s focused on technology and the future of work. Prior to Guild she served as President and COO of Domino Data Lab, a provider of an industry-leading data science platform, served as General Manager of Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics at Microsoft and helped pioneer people analytics products in Microsoft’s Office365 Suite. Natalie also served as Chief Revenue Officer at VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics company acquired by Microsoft, and spent more than five years at McKinsey & Company. She serves as Co-Chair of the Board for Outward Bound California, and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard.
Lorna Hagen
Chief People Officer
Lorna Hagen is a Human Capital executive with over 20 years of experience focused on building high-performance companies. Today, she is the Chief People Officer at Guild Education. Prior to Guild, she was Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at iHeartMedia where she successfully rebuilt their HR function. Lorna helped lead a successful IPO at OnDeck Capital and lead the organization to 16 “Best Companies to Work For” awards. As a Latina executive, Lorna is passionate about taking D&I from talk to action and is committed to building equitable career opportunities for all employees.
Lorna Hagen
Chief People Officer
Chris Garber
Chief Financial Officer
Natalie McCullough
Senior Vice President, Business Operations
Natalie joined Guild in 2020 where she leads Guild’s employer facing teams, driving the company’s go-to-market and growth efforts. She is a veteran executive and business leader with a track record of growth and a career that’s focused on technology and the future of work. Prior to Guild she served as President and COO of Domino Data Lab, a provider of an industry-leading data science platform, served as General Manager of Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics at Microsoft and helped pioneer people analytics products in Microsoft’s Office365 Suite. Natalie also served as Chief Revenue Officer at VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics company acquired by Microsoft, and spent more than five years at McKinsey & Company. She serves as Co-Chair of the Board for Outward Bound California, and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard.
Chris Garber
Chief Financial Officer
Chris leads Guild’s financial operations and strategy, leveraging his broad cross-functional experience driving growth, business transformation and operational excellence in public and pre-IPO technology companies. Prior to Guild, Chris served as SVP of Finance & Operations at LiveRamp (NYSE: RAMP), a SaaS data connectivity platform company, where he led FP&A, Revenue Operations, Analytics, and Business Technology. Chris has held a variety of finance roles at Acxiom, Silver Spring Networks, Electronic Arts, and Applied Materials. He holds a B.S. in Finance from Santa Clara University and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. Chris lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.
Annie Kadavy
Rebecca Biestman
Chief Brand & Communications Officer
Dean Carter
Chief People and Purpose Officer
Natalie McCullough
Senior Vice President, Business Operations
Natalie joined Guild in 2020 where she leads Guild’s employer facing teams, driving the company’s go-to-market and growth efforts. She is a veteran executive and business leader with a track record of growth and a career that’s focused on technology and the future of work. Prior to Guild she served as President and COO of Domino Data Lab, a provider of an industry-leading data science platform, served as General Manager of Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics at Microsoft and helped pioneer people analytics products in Microsoft’s Office365 Suite. Natalie also served as Chief Revenue Officer at VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics company acquired by Microsoft, and spent more than five years at McKinsey & Company. She serves as Co-Chair of the Board for Outward Bound California, and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard.
Rebecca Biestman
Chief Brand & Communications Officer
Rebecca Biestman leads the Brand and Communications teams at Guild Education. Rebecca has spent the last decade leading go to market and social impact teams for B2B SaaS technology organizations and joins us directly from Reputation, where she ran the global marketing and sales development functions. Prior to Reputation, Rebecca held marketing and social impact leadership positions at Dialpad and RMS. Rebecca began her career specializing in B2C brand marketing for CPG and retail, working for both Earth Essentials and Gap, Inc (Gap Digital).
Rebecca received both her undergraduate degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley, and her MBA in Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility from UC Berkeley’s Walter A. HaaS School of Business.
Natalie McCullough
Senior Vice President, Business Operations
Natalie joined Guild in 2020 where she leads Guild’s employer facing teams, driving the company’s go-to-market and growth efforts. She is a veteran executive and business leader with a track record of growth and a career that’s focused on technology and the future of work. Prior to Guild she served as President and COO of Domino Data Lab, a provider of an industry-leading data science platform, served as General Manager of Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics at Microsoft and helped pioneer people analytics products in Microsoft’s Office365 Suite. Natalie also served as Chief Revenue Officer at VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics company acquired by Microsoft, and spent more than five years at McKinsey & Company. She serves as Co-Chair of the Board for Outward Bound California, and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard.
Bijal Shah
Chief Experience Officer and Head of Platform
Bijal has significant experience leading multi-disciplinary technology teams. Prior to joining Guild, Bijal was SVP of Analytics & Data Science at Ibotta, and worked on the Global Corporate Strategy team at Visa, where she was responsible for Visa’s post-IPO organizational restructuring, repricing, and product innovation strategies. Bijal serves on the Board of Directors of Girls Inc. of Metro Denver, an organization focused on inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold. Bijal holds a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management.
Natalie McCullough
Senior Vice President, Business Operations
Natalie joined Guild in 2020 where she leads Guild’s employer facing teams, driving the company’s go-to-market and growth efforts. She is a veteran executive and business leader with a track record of growth and a career that’s focused on technology and the future of work. Prior to Guild she served as President and COO of Domino Data Lab, a provider of an industry-leading data science platform, served as General Manager of Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics at Microsoft and helped pioneer people analytics products in Microsoft’s Office365 Suite. Natalie also served as Chief Revenue Officer at VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics company acquired by Microsoft, and spent more than five years at McKinsey & Company. She serves as Co-Chair of the Board for Outward Bound California, and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard.
Dean Carter
Chief People and Purpose Officer
During his career, Dean’s perspectives on the innovative opportunities within HR, go-big cultures, and a regenerative approach to employee experiences have been featured in The Economist, NBC Nightly News, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, NPR Morning Edition, NPR Marketplace, The Wall Street Journal and various other books and national publications. The work of his HR teams has led to Brandon Hall’s Gold Award for Innovation in HR as well as SHRM’s prestigious HRM Impact Award.
Dean has maintained a history of leading in his home communities, with his most recent community work focused as a board member for the cutting-edge and world-renowned classical music innovation institute, the Music Academy, based in Montecito, CA. He is an avid hiker, beach dweller, Dad, husband, regenerative gardener, and occasionally picks up a fiddle for a squeaky tune.
Dean earned his undergraduate degree from The University of Texas at Austin and currently serves as a Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Workforce Science Fellow.
Dean has been an innovative and industry-recognized leader of People and Culture for over two decades across Fortune 50, hot growth, and culture-driven organizations. For the past seven years, he has led global People & Culture, Legal, and Finance teams for Patagonia reporting directly to the CEO. He also currently serves as an Independent Director on the Board of Directors for Griffith Foods, a high-growth Chicago-based privately held sustainable food company, as well as served several years as an Independent Director on the Board of Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ: CSOD), a now-private, formerly a publicly traded SAS, cloud-based HR technology company. In addition to Patagonia, he served as CHRO during his tenure at Sears Holdings and Fossil Inc. Leading up to his time at Fossil, he served in a variety of progressive HR and Management roles for Pier 1 Imports, Pearle Vision, and Procter & Gamble.
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Dean has been an innovative and industry-recognized leader of People and Culture for over two decades across Fortune 50, hot growth, and culture-driven organizations. For the past seven years, he has led global People & Culture, Legal, and Finance teams for Patagonia reporting directly to the CEO. He also currently serves as an Independent Director on the Board of Directors for Griffith Foods, a high-growth Chicago-based privately held sustainable food company, as well as served several years as an Independent Director on the Board of Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ: CSOD), a now-private, formerly a publicly traded SAS, cloud-based HR technology company. In addition to Patagonia, he served as CHRO during his tenure at Sears Holdings and Fossil Inc. Leading up to his time at Fossil, he served in a variety of progressive HR and Management roles for Pier 1 Imports, Pearle Vision, and Procter & Gamble.
During his career, Dean’s perspectives on the innovative opportunities within HR, go-big cultures, and a regenerative approach to employee experiences have been featured in The Economist, NBC Nightly News, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, NPR Morning Edition, NPR Marketplace, The Wall Street Journal and various other books and national publications. The work of his HR teams has led to Brandon Hall’s Gold Award for Innovation in HR as well as SHRM’s prestigious HRM Impact Award.
Dean has maintained a history of leading in his home communities, with his most recent community work focused as a board member for the cutting-edge and world-renowned classical music innovation institute, the Music Academy, based in Montecito, CA. He is an avid hiker, beach dweller, Dad, husband, regenerative gardener, and occasionally picks up a fiddle for a squeaky tune.
Dean earned his undergraduate degree from The University of Texas at Austin and currently serves as a Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Workforce Science Fellow.
Terrence Cummings
Chief Opportunity Officer
Terrence Cummings
Chief Opportunity Officer
Terrence is accountable for driving opportunity outcomes through economic mobility for Guild's learners, members, and employees. He previously served as the company's Senior Vice President of Member Services and Strategy, and before that led the company's employer partnerships teams. Prior to Guild, Terrence led product, marketing, partnerships, engineering, and analytics teams across a range of startup companies, and was previously a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Colorado. After stints in Boston and San Francisco, he now lives in Denver with his wife and son.
Rachel Romer
Rachel Romer
Jonathan Marek
Chief Customer Officer
Jonathan leads the teams at Guild that work with our employer partners and their employees to enable career mobility through access to education, skills, and career pathways. He was previously the General Manager for the Employer Partner Services team.
Prior to Guild, Jonathan served as SVP of Strategy for Mastercard’s Data & Services Business. Before that, as Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Retail & Restaurants at Applied Predictive Technologies (APT), Jonathan led the verticalization of APT’s client sales, marketing, and service. He also spent more than eight years at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman).
Jonathan holds a B.S. in Mathematics (with Honors and Distinction) and an A.B. in Philosophy from Stanford University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
Dan Haley
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Dan Haley
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Dan Haley serves as Guild’s General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, and leads the company’s legal teams. He brings decades of legal experience, working at both public and private companies, and has a proven track record for scaling and developing legal functions. Prior to Guild, he served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Sprinklr, following nearly seven years at athenahealth where he held a variety of leadership roles within the organization’s legal team and eventually served as General Counsel and Chief Legal and Administrative Officer. Dan earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Middlebury College and his juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School.