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Blackboard founder and CEO resigns – What it means for the LMS industry

Michael Chasen, CEO and co-founder of Blackboard, surprised more than a few people this week by announcing his departure from the company, says Christopher Dawson for ZDNet Education. According to the Washington Post [1], Chasen said the decision to depart was reached amicably and that he was ready to pursue new opportunities after 15 years in a high-demand job. Will that next step be part of another start-up or another large firm? Either is an option, he said.

Chasen is only a couple years older than I am and has three kids. It’s not unreasonable that he might want to slow things down a bit, particularly after a tumultuous year of acquisitions and increasing competition in the enterprise LMS market. After the company’s purchase by Providence Equity Partners for a cool $1.6 billion and change last October, Chasen agreed to stay on as CEO for at least a year. It’s been a year and now the CEO of a mutlibillion dollar technology company (Jay Bhatt, CEO of Progress Software and formerly of Autodesk) has been tapped to fill his shoes…

Click here for the full story [2]