Meet the People Behind NovoEd

Scott serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of NovoEd, which was acquired by Devonshire in October 2018. He also leads the education technology team for Devonshire Investors, the private investment arm of Fidelity. Before joining Devonshire in 2017, Scott was the president of Capella University, and has served as the chief executive of three other technology services businesses since the late 1990s. Scott is passionate about the potential for innovation and technology to aid the transformation of learning at all levels, particularly for the enterprise and the mid-career learner.

In addition to the field of education technology, Scott enjoys history, photography, and Nordic ski racing.  Scott holds a B.A. in geology from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Stanford University.

Farnaz designed and built the first version of the NovoEd platform in 2012 at Stanford’s Social Algorithms Lab. The project was part of her PhD thesis on collaborative learning at scale, and her research focused on incentives and motivators in online learning environments.

She is passionate about building the next generation of effective, engaging online learning experiences at scale.

Farnaz holds a B.S. in computer science from Sharif University of Technology and an M.S. and Ph.D in management science and engineering; information science and technology from Stanford University.

Todd Moran a learning strategist, business transformation evangelist, and digital workplace expert with over 20 years of industry experience. His passion and expertise lie in educational technology, digital customer experience, organizational change management, and employee engagement.

His professional career has spanned start-ups to non-profits and large multinationals, and his current role at NovoEd as the Chief Learning Strategist. From the megatrends in learning and enterprise collaboration to technology evaluation and implementation, to the ‘people’ side of organizational change and talent development, he covers the gamut of understanding what it takes to enable a successful digital workplace and deep employee engagement.

Todd holds a B.A. in Organizational Psychology from Middlebury College, and an M.A. in Information & Learning Technology from the University of Colorado.

Derek joins NovoEd as a 14-year veteran of parent company, FMR LLC, where he’s served in roles of increasing responsibility, including advising the Chairman and CEO of NovoEd, investment decision support activities focused on corporate development, minority investment management process, and the launch of alternative asset management products. He was also the Head of Global Finance for Pembroke Real Estate, an international real estate advisor for its two principal investors FMR LLC and FIL Ltd, and the Head of Distribution Finance for FIAM LLC. Prior to joining FMR in 2008, Derek held both finance and business roles at several investment management firms in the Boston area.

Derek received a Master of Business Administration from the Questrom School of Business, Boston University and a BS/BA in Accounting from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.  He also received a Congressional Nomination and Appointment to the United State Military Academy at West Point NY.

Richard has over 25 years of experience in educational technology with institutional background ranging from universities, to startups, to industry leading companies. Before joining NovoEd, he led marketing teams at fast-growing, innovative companies including Blackboard and Echo360. He has a passion for education and has dedicated his career to enabling better learning through technology.

Richard has a B.A. and an M.A. in English from the University of Connecticut.

Lisa has been at NovoEd since 2015, serving clients in both professional services and customer success roles.

Before joining NovoEd, Lisa worked at the University of New Hampshire, where she directed the College of Liberal Arts Center for Study Abroad, managing 23 faculty-led programs in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. She cares deeply about lifelong learning, career mobility, and intercultural education, and also held positions coordinating international exchange programs for volunteers and teachers at WorldTeach and the Institute of International Education, as well as teaching high school English in France.

She earned her Master’s in Education (Ed.M.) from Harvard University and her B.A. in French and International Affairs at the University of New Hampshire.

Daniel oversees NovoEd’s technical infrastructure, architecture and engineering organization. He spent more than a decade in Silicon Valley playing critical roles shaping the Silicon Valley landscape, to mention a couple, by merging hi5 networks into Tagged in San Francisco and helping Microsoft to move from Hotmail to LiveMail in Mountain View.

Daniel studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science at Addis Ababa University, in Ethiopia. He holds a Masters in Computer Science from Maharishi University, in the US.