Rob Waldron, Chief Executive Officer
Rob Waldron joined Curriculum Associates in 2008, bringing leadership experience from both for-profit and nonprofit education worlds. He runs the company with a long-term focus, upholding the founding mission to improve classrooms everywhere. Under his leadership, revenues have increased more than seven-fold, making Curriculum Associates the nation’s fastest-growing K–12 education publishing company. Curriculum Associates now employs nearly 800 staff and has earned “Top Place to Work” status from both the Boston Business Journal and The Boston Globe.

Prior to joining, Rob served as CEO of Jumpstart, a national nonprofit preparing preschoolers from low-income backgrounds for success, and as CEO of the K12 tutoring division of Kaplan Education. Rob also served as an operating executive at private equity firm Berkshire Partners.

Winner of EdTech Digest CEO of the Year and named a 2016 EY Entrepreneur of the Year in New England, Rob’s mission-driven passion has earned him recognition as a Fast Company Top 25 Social Entrepreneur and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. An Aspen Institute/Pahara Fellow, Rob also served as a Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Rob received his B.A. from Northwestern and M.B.A. from Harvard.

Dave Caron, Chief Financial Officer
Dave joined Curriculum Associates in 2012 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. At Houghton, he was responsible for corporate strategy development and for the sourcing, negotiating, and closing of acquisitions, licensing and related transactions. Prior to joining Houghton, Dave was the CFO at Cambium Learning from 2004 to 2009, where he led all financial functions and increased sales from $30 million in 2004 to $100 million in 2008.

Woody Paik, Executive Vice President
Woody Paik leads Curriculum Associates' partnership and sales teams. He works closely with numerous districts and schools across the country that are implementing assessment strategies, Common Core curricula, core mathematics offerings, and blended learning models. Prior to joining CA, Woody managed business units at the Corporate Executive Board focused on consulting, research, and quantitative analysis for sales and marketing leaders. Woody also implemented technology solutions for Accenture's consulting practice and taught English literature to secondary students. Woody holds a B.A. in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.

Andy Smith, Chief Technology Officer
Andy joined Curriculum Associates in March of 2011 and oversees the software development and operations teams. Andy has over 20 years of experience leading high performing teams across a variety of technology areas including software development, network engineering, and information technology. Before joining CA, Andy was Vice President of engineering and product management at Authoria, a leading provider of talent management software. Prior to joining Authoria, he managed technology and development organizations at Geac, leading up to the acquisition by Infor Global for $1.1 billion. Prior to Geac, Andy led multiple technology and operations functions at Lycos, Honeywell, and Stratus Computer as well as consulted in the fields of data warehousing and business intelligence systems.

Katie Nicholson, Senior Vice President, Digital Product
Katie joined Curriculum Associates in 2009 and since then has served in several roles to support product strategy and development efforts. In her current role, she oversees CA's digital assessment and instruction platforms. Prior to joining CA, Katie served as Case Team Leader at the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit strategy consulting firm, where she worked with a number of leading education and philanthropic organizations to support their efforts to address pressing strategic issues. She also served as Senior Director of External Affairs at Jumpstart for Young Children, a national early education nonprofit organization. Katie began her career in management consulting at Bain & Company. She holds a BA in psychology from Amherst College, an MA in education from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.