XanEdu works to inspire the education community with innovative solutions to build affordable, accessible learning experiences that drive student success.
Meet the TeamWe envision a XanEdu solution in every instructional environment because we believe students succeed when relevant and accessible educational experiences are tailored to their learning communities.
What drives us:
By working with college bookstores, university faculty, school administration, and K-12 school districts, millions of students use XanEdu learning materials.
Since 1999 we have provided a wide range of custom options for formatting and creating content, and distributing educational materials—improving the student experience by making it more relevant and affordable.
Whatever your teaching and learning needs, XanEdu can help with affordable, customized solutions.
XanEdu is part of the Scholarus Learning portfolio of companies. Our companies provide a broad suite of solutions in the key areas of professional services, survey and diagnostic tools, custom content and publishing. We partner with K-12 and Higher Education communities to assess, create, and deliver custom education solutions that increase engagement and improve outcomes. To learn more, visit scholarus.com.
XanEdu is a part of the Scholarus Learning group of companies and we have a commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging.
We believe that cultivating and maintaining an inclusive work environment where every individual can be themselves is essential to engaging in rigorous work with our educational partners.
We believe that cultivating and maintaining an inclusive work environment where every individual can be themselves is essential to engaging in rigorous work with our educational partners.
In order to achieve this goal we commit to:
In addition to the good work we do for our customers and their students, XanEdu actively works to have a positive influence on the world. Some of the ways we put those words into action:
Annual Food Drives:
Gleaners Food Bank
Feed America
Educational Donations:
United Negro College Fund (UNCF)
Education Trust Midwest
Environmental Initiatives:
Arbor Day Tree Planting
Big thanks to @XanEdu for working with our curriculum team to create over 400,000 learning support materials for NHA students during COVID-19. We appreciate the high-quality materials and record turnaround. We’re so grateful for your team’s hard work & dedication.
Often, teachers feel like they should stick with the exact language in the textbook, but our open custom solution provides an opportunity to adapt [the material] and make it appropriate for the students in their classroom.
We choose to use XanEdu because of their excellent customer service and hassle-free returns policy. I have over 10 years of experience doing business with XanEdu and have never been let down. We highly recommend using XanEdu to all our colleagues.
Not only is the custom organization of the units more impactful for student achievement, but the strategies used to unpack a text or create a piece of writing have helped our teachers improve their practice.
XanEdu was a pleasure to work with as we put together a custom course reader for a large class of 500 students. (They) were consummate professionals throughout, listening to our needs, setting clear time lines, and keeping us on track with everything that needed to be done.
Chad Bonney
Chief Executive Officer
Chad Bonney is the CEO of XanEdu. Prior to XanEdu, he held numerous transformational leadership roles for Cengage Learning both domestically and internationally including VP of Finance, SVP, COO, CFO of Global Business, and, most recently, Senior Vice President and General Manager for International Higher Education. Bonney holds an A.B in Government and Spanish from Bowdoin College and an MBA from the University of Georgia.
Brett Costello
Chief Business Development Officer
Brett Costello places partnership at the center of all aspects of his work. Over the past 20 years, Brett has developed a unique ability to cultivate enduring relationships and solutions through close collaboration with customers, vendors, and internal stakeholders.
By keeping partnership at the core of his philosophy, Brett has successfully built and led dynamic teams of sales, marketing, product development and operations professionals to drive sustainable growth, profit, but most importantly - customer satisfaction.
Brett earned a Master of Business Administration from the Ross School of Business and his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.
Marc Steinberg
Chief Technology Officer
As Chief Technology Officer , Marc designs, manages, and supports digital strategies and systems to deliver maximum value to our customers. His portfolio spans all facets of technology, including architecture, engineering, infrastructure, and customer-facing technical support.
Marc previously held technical leadership roles at SkillCheck and First Advantage, most recently acting as Senior Director of Software Development for First Advantage. Marc began his career writing curriculum and software for QWIZ (now part of SHL).
Marc earned his undergraduate degree at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He is based in Boston, Massachusetts where, in addition to all things technical, he pursues music composition and enjoys almost any DIY project, from amplifier circuit design to whole-house renovation.
Tom Stevens
Chief Financial Officer
Tom joined XanEdu in 2020 as Chief Financial Officer following several years as the CFO for RS Energy Group, a private equity owned technology company. Prior to RSEG, he was the CFO for Crain Communications, a privately held media company, and VP of Finance at ProQuest, leading their digital content publishing efforts.
He has also held executive level positions with publicly traded entities, including Pulte Homes and Borders Group, was an equity analyst with Manning & Napier Advisors, worked in M&A with Deloitte, and began his career as a CPA with Ernst & Young.
Tom has an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Michigan State University.
Kevin Woodman
Senior Vice President, Manufacturing and Production
As Senior Vice President of Sales and Operations, Kevin is responsible for the day to day operations of XanEdu’s production and fulfillment teams. He provides strategic direction to the company in order to improve processes and develop customer service initiatives.
Kevin has been with XanEdu for over 11 years and has served in various roles such as Account Executive, Regional Sales Manager, and Director of Folio-xPress.
Kevin earned his undergraduate degree at Michigan State University and then went on to earn his MBA at Eastern Michigan University.
Sharon Norris
Vice President, Human Resources
As Vice President Human Resources, Sharon provides leadership and guidance to XanEdu’s HR operations. She is responsible for setting, enforcing, and evaluating legally compliant human resources policies, procedures, and best practices, and identifying and implementing long-range strategic culture & people goals.
Sharon holds a BS from Oakland University, with a major in Human Resource Management and post graduate studies at Central Michigan University in HR Leadership.
With over 20 years of Human Resource experience and she has worked in the airline, telecommunications and Education Tech industries. She is a certified sales training facilitator, a certified “Mind Gym” facilitator, and a certified Leadership Development Coach. Sharon is a former Board member of the “YES” Foundation, an education equity organization, and a current member of the Association for Talent Development (ATD), Society Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Passionate about serving her community and mentoring future leaders, she serves as a volunteer with the Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan and mentors young women from a residential empowerment program in Metro Detroit.
John Carroll
Senior Vice President, Product Development
John has joined XanEdu as the SVP, Product Management & Strategy. In his role, John is responsible for the strategic vision and implementation of XanEdu’s K-12 product roadmap and its content/curriculum vision.
John has over 15 years of edTech experience in the K-12 school market including Product Management, Marketing, and Strategy roles at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill Education, Pearson School, and Scholastic.
John holds a BA in Economics from Tufts University and an MBA from Northeastern University.
Melissa Acuña
Vice President & General Manager of Higher Education
As Vice President & General Manager of Higher Education, Melissa brings over 25 years' experience in motivation, team building, content acquisition, product marketing and management in the educational publishing industry to XanEdu. A goal and achievement oriented leader, Melissa is responsible for Strategic Planning and Partnerships, managing XanEdu's product teams and supporting the sales teams, customer relationship building, sales partnering, and contract negotiations and launches of new Higher Ed courseware, OER, and other student- and faculty-focused products.
Aaron Meyers
Vice President, Operations
As the Vice President of Operations, Aaron Meyers oversees fulfillment and customer service for all of our Higher Ed and K-12 customers. Aaron has been with XanEdu for seven years, has a passion for our people, and is driven by providing the best customer experience possible.
Aaron has been in the publishing industry for almost 20 years and has a wealth of experience in operations, account management and customer service. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a graduate degree from the University of San Francisco.
Joyce Mueller
Vice President of Marketing
Effective educational experiences can transform lives and Joyce is thrilled to lead marketing for XanEdu's K-12 and Higher Education teams. The marketing team works diligently to translate customer insights and trends into actionable, measurable and impactful marketing programs.
Joyce's journey has taken her through a diverse array of industries including education, consumer services and manufacturing. This broad base gives her an expansive viewpoint from which to challenge teams to find innovative ways to reach customers and bring relevant products to market.
Joyce feels the opportunity to play a role in advancing affordable education tools that complements evolving learning styles brings nonstop, intriguing business challenges that are incredibly fulfilling.
Jason Plackowski
Vice President, Finance
As the Vice President of Finance, Jason works closely with all groups of XanEdu to ensure all functions of accounting and finance run as smoothly as possible. He has been with the company since 2008 after being in public accounting for 8 years as a CPA.
As the company has changed over the years, many opportunities and challenges arose at XanEdu to allow him greater growth and to gain invaluable experience in finance and business in general.
Hilary Mitchell
Vice President, User Experience and Design
Since joining XanEdu in 2013, Hilary has worked with team members across the organization to ensure engaging human-centered experiences to support XanEdu’s mission of accessible learning experiences that drive student success.
Hilary brings over 20 years of experience in web and application design and development, and working with web-to-print workflows. Prior to XanEdu, she worked at a technology startup specializing in web-based story creation, sharing, and printing, as well as customizable photo merchandise creation and printing for companies including Universal Orlando Resorts, IBM and Royal Caribbean International.
Hilary is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, and lives outside of Boston, MA where she enjoys drawing and trying to keep up with her ever energetic Boston Terrier.
Dave Schroeter
Vice President, K-12 Sales
Dave has 15+ years of sales and sales leadership experience in K-12 education, public libraries, federal and state government, corporate and higher education markets. His proven leadership style has resulted in the positive transformation of numerous sales and services organizations.
Leading with a results-oriented approach, that emphasizes personal accountability, strategic thinking, and hard work, has resulted in the consistent delivery of financial commitments. Additionally, Dave has extensive experience in helping organizations leverage their investment in Customer Relationship Management, CRM, software. Having both sold and led the implementation of CRM software, Dave possesses the insights and knowledge on how these tools can truly help improve an organization’s effectiveness.
Prior to joining XanEdu Dave managed his own consulting firm. He has also held numerous positions with increasing responsibilities, most recently as Senior Vice President of Sales & Services at Follett School Solutions and Gale, a division of Cengage Learning. He has also held positions at Proquest and Siebel Solutions Systems prior to that organization be acquired by Oracle Software.
Dave holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Toledo and a Masters in Education from Eastern Michigan University.
Kate Newlin
Director of Operations, Higher Education
Kate Newlin is the Director of Operations for Higher Education, overseeing coursepack production for all Higher Ed customers. She started at XanEdu in 2014 building coursepacks for a few select schools and has worked her way up to her present role leading the team. She brings this experience and perspective to her role, ensuring her team has the tools and processes they need to perform at the highest level of operational excellence in meeting the needs of customers.
Kate moved to Ann Arbor in 2011 to attend graduate school at University of Michigan and is one of those people who never left.
Caitlin O'Brien
Director of Permissions
Caitlin O'Brien is a 15-year veteran of rights and permissions in educational publishing across all formats, genres, and levels. Though she grew up in Washington and Alaska, she completed her studies in Melbourne, Australia, where she started her publishing career as a Copyright & Pictures Editor for Pearson Australia's K-12 division. After several years in Australia, she returned to the US, managing permissions for Boston-based publishers Pearson Learning Solutions and Vista Higher Learning.
From her home office in southern New Hampshire, Caitlin manages XanEdu's expert permissions services, ensuring our customers' products are rich in engaging, copyright-compliant content.
Mandy Gagel
Managing Editor, Higher Education and Custom Books
Mandy Gagel is Managing Editor for Custom Books and Higher Education. She leads the Custom Books editorial team and oversees the production of approximately 150 custom and OER titles a year.
Mandy has over 15 years of experience as an editor for scholarly publications and textbooks for colleges and universities. She holds a PhD in scholarly editing from Boston University, and prior to joining the XanEdu team worked as an editor for a number of university publishing projects, including the Mark Twain Project at UC-Berkeley.
Mandy loves working with our authors to discuss and craft their custom books and is happy to share her knowledge about textbook publishing with them.
Danielle Aceves
Managing Editor, K-12
As Managing Editor, K-12, Danielle oversees the design and prepress production of all K12 titles, ensuring that files are ready for their final output. Danielle has over 15 years of experience in the print and publishing industry, specializing in design management, creative problem solving, and workflow development. She has worked in nearly all facets of title production from design and layout, to preparing files for press, and on to eBook and digital asset creation.
Prior to joining XanEdu, she worked at Macmillan Learning where she helped higher ed professors format their content for their custom textbooks and building workflows to scale for growth.
Danielle graduated from Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Indiana where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication. She now resides in Michigan and enjoys traveling, painting, gardening, and finding new ways to exercise her creativity.
Mike Kesson
Director of Print and Fulfillment
As Director of Print and Fulfillment, Mike oversees the production, manufacturing and delivery of all print and fulfillment solutions for the K-12 and Higher Ed teams. This includes supporting the operations teams as well as maintaining the partnerships required to ensure the best customer experience and the highest quality products in the market.
Previously, Mike spent 25 years at Hayden-McNeil Publishing (Macmillan Learning) working with the leadership team to create the foundation of the production, warehousing, and shipping workflows and processes. Mike has deep expertise in designing, implementing and managing production, ERP, warehouse processes and workflows within the educational business space.
Mike studied business at Eastern Michigan University, and when he isn’t on the job at XanEdu he enjoys fishing, hunting, golfing, and his favorite pastime is baseball.
Karen Stec
Executive Director of Sales Operations
As the Executive Director of Sales Operations, Karen works collaboratively across functional teams at all levels of the business creating organizational excellence that drive results.
With over 20 years in education publishing and technology, Karen is an accomplished leader with experience in overseeing, directing, and supporting customer success and operations. She is a strategic sales & marketing partner providing business, and operational expertise to the organization to drive improved sales effectiveness and revenue outcomes.
Karen earned her Bachelor of Science from Western Michigan University.
Kelly Wozniak
Production Manager, K-12 Guidebooks
As K-12 Guidebooks Production Manager Kelly builds and organizes the materials and process guidebook orders. She has been with XanEdu for 3.5 years and started journey in Higher Education as an Account Representative. Last year Kelly made the move to work with the K-12 team leading production of the K-12 Guidebooks. She has two dogs and lives in Kentucky.
Jim Agostine
Customer Service Manager
Jim is responsible for overseeing XanEdu’s Support team, which provides customer and technical assistance to our end users across multiple product lines. He brings nearly 30 years of experience in managing customer-facing support groups, and has been with XanEdu for the last 16 years.