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About BridgeU

BridgeU was founded to help young people around the world realise their potential, through empowering schools to provide smart, modern university and careers guidance to students.

Our story

At BridgeU, we know that the needs of students, schools and universities are constantly evolving.

The fundamental practice of university and careers guidance has neither evolved to reflect modernisation across higher education, nor changed to meet the developing needs of industry. This practice has led to students frequently making higher education decisions in a vacuum, leading to high dropout rates and poor skills alignment with labour market opportunities. What’s more, traditional solutions designed to aid in the university and careers advice process are often paper-based and limited in scope.
These traditional approaches provide little value to teaching staff and senior leaders in the important advisory work they do. We believe that enabling schools to provide smart, modern university and careers guidance is a matter of crucial importance - not just for progressing students to the right post-secondary destinations, but for global social and economic health. BridgeU was founded to help schools prepare the students of today to flourish in the world of tomorrow.

Our people

Lucy Stonehill
Co-Founder & CEO

Lucy Stonehill

Co-Founder & CEO

Lucy grew up in the UK and the USA, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Dartmouth College, where she studied Literature and Psychology.

Upon graduation, Lucy worked for the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, before leaving to launch her first business, an educational consulting firm tailored to the unique needs of international students and schools. In 2013, Lucy founded BridgeU to focus on the next challenge - fixing the broken transition between secondary and higher education. Lucy has been labelled an ‘Entrepreneur Role Model’ by the European Commission, and won Techpreneur of the Year in a 2015 at a ceremony hosted at the House of Commons celebrating leading female entrepreneurs. In 2016, Lucy was selected by Forbes as a ‘Top 30 under 30” European technology innovator.

Stuart Cochran
CTO

Stuart Cochran

CTO

Stuart is Chief Technology Officer at BridgeU where he leads the team responsible for product design and development, software engineering, and data science.

He joined BridgeU from Huddle, a leading secure collaboration company used by more than 160,000 enterprise and government organisations, where he was CTO. Huddle was acquired by Turn/River Capital in 2017. Previously, he was vice president of product management at Amdocs, a global leader in enterprise software with more than $3 billion in revenue. Earlier in his career, he was CTO of Evolving Systems, an enterprise software business listed on the NASDAQ market, and has held a number of product and development roles. Stuart has a BSc (Hons) in Theoretical Physics and a MSc in Computing and Computer Modelling of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems.

Hayley Elias
Head of Customer Success

Hayley Elias

Head of Customer Success

Hayley grew up in Kenya and the UK, and graduated from Cambridge University in 2007, where she studied English.

After graduating, she co-founded a consultancy with offices in Manila and Hong Kong, advising Fortune 500 companies on intercultural communication for virtual teams, going on to author a teaching curriculum guide on this topic (published by Cambridge University Press). Hayley joined BridgeU in 2014 as the founding member of the education partnerships team. She brings years of experience working closely with schools and universities advising them on how to best prepare young people for entering global higher education and labour markets.

Maris Liigmann
Head of Finance & Operations

Maris Liigmann

Head of Finance & Operations

Maris leads finance and operations at BridgeU.

Before joining BridgeU, she was Head of Finance at Streetbees, an Octopus Ventures and BGF backed tech start-up. Prior to finding her passion for helping to scale start-up businesses, Maris worked as a Deals Manager at PwC with a focus on retail and consumer diligence projects globally. She started out at PwC Assurance, working on global audit and business transformation projects, and qualified as a chartered accountant with the ICAEW. Maris comes from Estonia originally, and moved to the UK to get her degree in Finance, Accounting and Management from the University of Nottingham.

LaRoy Hoard
Head of Asia-Pacific

LaRoy Hoard

Head of Asia-Pacific

LaRoy leads customer success for APAC and manages operations for the Hong Kong office.

Prior to joining BridgeU, LaRoy was the Asia-Pacific Operations Manager for Direct Supply, working with teams across the US and China to develop innovative new products. Having studied at four universities on three continents, LaRoy fell in love with BridgeU’s mission to help students make smarter, data-driven university and careers decisions. He graduated with an MBA from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and previously earned a BS in International Business and Marketing from Marquette University.

Oscar Webb
Global Customer Success Manager

Oscar Webb

Global Customer Success Manager

Oscar has spent the past eight years working in the tech and SaaS sectors managing and supporting customers.

At BridgeU, he focuses on giving the best possible experience to our customers, and helping to integrate school feedback into how BridgeU develops its software. Before joining BridgeU, Oscar worked for a PR SaaS organisation managing the accounts of multinational corporations including IGN Entertainment and International Red Cross, offering bespoke guidance and support. Oscar earned a BA (Hons) from Bath Spa University, where he studied Creative Arts.

Kelsey Botne
Global Implementation Manager

Kelsey Botne

Global Implementation Manager

Kelsey has spent a decade working in the education sector, with a background in teaching and training.

As Global Implementation Manager, she directs consulting and training to effectively bring BridgeU into partner schools. Prior to joining BridgeU, Kelsey worked with major school districts in the US, focusing on training, change management, and university and careers guidance. She has also led school-based community engagement programs, partnering with BET, CSPAN, The Washington Post, and various US congressional offices, among others. Currently, Kelsey is a MEd candidate at the University of Exeter.

Shellie Gazdik
Head of Sales Asia-Pacific

Shellie Gazdik

Head of Sales Asia-Pacific

After graduating with a BA in History and Russian Studies, Shellie has spent the last 14 years working in all aspects of the education industry.

She began her career helping students prepare for university: coaching them in ACT/SAT test prep and helping them prepare their university applications. After this, she worked for a trade school in the US, tracking and managing student retention and graduation rates and ensuring students were successfully employed post graduation. She moved on to work for Pearson's LMS and helped universities such as ASU Online and Sunderland University plan, build and track their online degree programs, before she began her dive into university and careers readiness planning with Hobsons' Naviance product. She has worked with 800+ international schools across the globe to help better prepare students for post-secondary success and is excited to continue doing so at BridgeU.

Gareth Adams
Senior Engineer

Gareth Adams

Senior Engineer

Gareth has worked in web development for 12 years, working both in the private and public sector before joining BridgeU as Senior Engineer.

At web agency Kyan he spent six years working on various client websites, including cutting edge market research companies, education performance tools and staffing agency management. He also worked in the web prototyping team for BBC Research and Development, spending three years exploring the potential of online content discovery. On the rare occasions that he’s not writing code, Gareth likes immersive theatre, escaping from rooms and improvised comedy.

Rafik Djeridi
Product Manager

Rafik Djeridi

Product Manager

Rafik is passionate about building simple and robust products that can shape the way we work, live and learn.

Rafik holds a Bachelor of Software Engineering from McGill University. His time spent working at IBM, McGill University, and various startups across Canada and the UK has enabled him to combine his technical skills with a business savviness, making him an invaluable member of BridgeU’s product team. He is particularly excited about his work at BridgeU as he believes in using technology as a means to facilitate access to information, knowledge and culture.

Molly Pierce
Content & Marketing Manager

Molly Pierce

Content & Marketing Manager

Molly was a journalist before she joined the team at BridgeU, where she leads the company’s marketing, content, and communications efforts.

As a journalist, she worked on staff for magazines in the US and the UK, and led an editorial team at Bauer Media focused on telling stories around careers, accessibility, and secondary education. She has freelanced for titles including the Guardian, Refinery29, and San Francisco magazine, writing about culture, politics, gender and sport. In 2016, she graduated with an MJ (Digital Narrative) from the University of California at Berkeley. Previously, Molly earned a BA (Hons) from the University of Oxford, where she studied English Literature.

David Millican
Lead Data Scientist

David Millican

Lead Data Scientist

After studying Mathematics at Cambridge University for one term, Dave ended up graduating with a Masters in Chemistry in 2010.

He then changed his mind again, completing an MPhil in Economics at Oxford University. From here, he moved to Italy to work as a Mathematical Modeller for the Ferrari F1 Team, developing computer simulations for race strategy and applying machine learning to interpret aerodynamic data. Wanting a change from shaving milliseconds off lap times, Dave joined BridgeU after realising the potential in using machine learning to help others avoid his mistakes, and find their ideal course first time around.

Education Partnerships
Team

Education Partnerships

Team

Our Education Partnerships team is responsible for building relationships with secondary schools, governments and universities around the world.

This team powers BridgeU’s expansion into new countries, participates heavily in the development of the platform, and drives the mission that propels BridgeU forward: changing how schools provide university and careers guidance to their students.

Customer Success
Team

Customer Success

Team

We are a customer-focused business, and our success stems from the strong relationships we build with our schools across the world.

Our Customer Success team help schools to extract great value from the BridgeU platform, and works closely with the product team to provide the best possible service to our schools. The Customer Success team trains schools in the use of BridgeU and manages the process of transitioning from alternative approaches onto the BridgeU platform.

Development
Team

Development

Team

Our Development team builds a better BridgeU every day.

On a daily basis, our talented and passionate team of designers, developers, data scientists and product owners think about and action ways to improve how BridgeU can reinvent the way users approach higher education and careers. This team strives to bring creativity into their work every day; everyone is encouraged to contribute, learn and teach throughout the process of developing the platform.

Our advisers & investors

Rebecca Hunt
Investor

Rebecca Hunt

Investor

Principal, Octopus Ventures

Rebecca joined Octopus Ventures in 2012. Her investment interests include consumer marketplaces, eCommerce, retail and fashion technology, as well as EdTech, Digital Health and Fintech. Rebecca has experience of working with early stage businesses across different sectors and has led investments into and served on the boards of a number of investee companies including BridgeU. Prior to joining Octopus, Rebecca spent five years working in the Corporate Finance department at Deloitte. Rebecca is a qualified chartered accountant, and has a first class honours degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Southampton.

Allison Baum
Investor

Allison Baum

Investor

Managing partner, Fresco Capital

Allison Baum is a co-founder and managing partner of Fresco Capital, a global, early stage venture capital fund investing in technology companies transforming education, healthcare, and the future of work. Prior to Fresco, Allison was an early member of the team at General Assembly, a global network for education and career transformation specialising in today’s most in-demand skills, where she developed and launched the company’s first part-time and full-time programs for technology, business, and design in New York. In 2012, she relocated to Hong Kong to launch their first business in Asia. Previously, she was a member of the Equity Derivatives team and Cross Asset Sales teams at Goldman Sachs in New York City.

Our values

We work together to empower schools to provide smart, modern university and careers guidance to their students.

  • We are committed to providing an end-to-end approach to university and careers guidance for schools across the world.
  • Depth of understanding and breadth of coverage are at the heart of our platform. Schools get access to baked-in higher education expertise across every element of the guidance process.
  • We want to empower students and schools to explore and take advantage of an increasingly global set of higher education and career choices.
  • We believe that fulfilling our duty of care to BridgeU customers is critical. With the help of our in-house data and development teams, we prioritise data protection and the robustness of the service we deliver across the 50+ countries that we operate in.
  • Product development at BridgeU is inherently collaborative. We build long term partnerships with our schools. We work closely with teachers and senior leaders to incorporate their requests and feedback into the development process, so that we can ensure the customer voice is always represented.

Working at BridgeU

Everything we do comes from a place of determination and daring.

At BridgeU, we want to improve the way young people approach significant life-stage changes. Our platform is intelligent, built from the desire to make the best possible use of cutting-edge technologies. We seek team members who embrace and create change - our work is not just about helping a small group of people, but about creating enduring, real change in the way young people across the globe understand and embrace life’s opportunities.

Our people trust each other and are innately curious: about their work, about the world, about the person sitting next to them. Our team consists of a diverse array of skillsets, backgrounds and experiences. If you think this sounds exactly like you, then we’d love to hear from you.

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