Josh Pierce

Co-Founder & CEO

Acadeum

Josh is a once upon a time private equity grunt who found a calling building education businesses.  He started in charter schools 15 years ago and migrated to higher education over time.  He focuses on building sustainable business models around effective education models.  Josh as been at the founding/launch of UniversityNow, Collegiate Gateways, Synergis, Vault, MeasureOne, Meritize and Acadeum.  His strengths are in post-secondary online economics, student financial aid and the bridges between secondary and post-secondary (or lack thereof) as well as the bridges between degrees and jobs (or the lack thereof).  He fundamentally believes in a realignment of the production model of higher education along the lines of what has been seen in virtually every other industry.  That is the transition from vertically integrated thinking with monolithic options for students to a just-in-time mentality with complex and integrated supply chains.  He co-founded Acadeum in 2016 with his partners to capitalize on this coming change.  Acadeum is a marketplace where colleges get courses from other colleges when they can't meet students' needs locally but with full assurance of credit transferability and access to financial aid.