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Join Udacity in redefining what’s possible with talent transformation.

About Us

<b>Udacity is the trusted market leader in talent transformation.</b> <br >We change lives, businesses, and nations through digital upskilling, developing the edge you need to conquer what’s next.

We turn talent into <i>greatness.</i>

Sebastian Thrun is a scientist, educator, inventor, and entrepreneur. As the Founder and Chairman of Udacity, Sebastian’s mission is to democratize education by providing lifelong learning to millions of students worldwide. He is also the founder of Google X, where he led projects including the Self-Driving Car, Google Glass, and more.

Previously, he led the Stanford Racing Team whose robot “Stanley” won the DARPA Grand Challenge. Sebastian has been named the 5th Most Creative Person in Business (Fast Company), among the 50 Smartest People in Tech (Fortune), and highlighted in 50 Best Inventions of 2010 (Time). He is the first recipient of the inaugural Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for Education, and is also featured in the recent film Lo & Behold: Reveries of the Connected World by award-winning writer and director Werner Herzog.


Sebastian Thrun

Founder and Executive Chairman

James Richards is the Chief Technology Officer at Udacity. Prior to joining Udacity he worked at Nest Labs, leading server-side development teams.

During his time at Nest, he oversaw the release of several versions of the thermostat, smoke detector, and security camera focusing on the interaction model of these IoT devices. James also was an early engineer and leader at LinkedIn. Over his eight years he built and lead teams helping LinkedIn scale to hundreds of millions of users and thousands of employees.


James Richards

Chief Technology Officer

Jennifer Dearman is Chief Customer Officer at Udacity with more than 25 years of experience as an advisor, thought leader, speaker and executive in the customer success field.

Spanning public, private, large enterprise and startup companies, Jennifer has held senior roles at Deloitte, Red Hat, Kronos, and Pendo focused on helping customers achieve outcomes with technology, creating scalable customer organizations, and transforming customer experiences.

Jennifer holds Bachelor’s degrees in Accounting and Business Management from North Carolina State University and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.


Jennifer Dearman

Chief Customer Officer

Hisham Elaraby is the Chief Financial Officer at Udacity. Previously, he served as the VP of Corporate Development and the VP for Government, leading the company’s efforts to partner with governments around the world to build national tech-upskilling programs.

Prior to joining Udacity, Hisham worked at Google as the Industry Head of Automotive and Mobile in the Middle East & North Africa region, leading the execution of Google’s largest ecosystem investment in the region. This initiative was an effort to certify and provide economic opportunities for 2,000 developers. It was through this experience Hisham realized his passion for powering careers through tech education.

Hisham has a background in consulting with McKinsey & Company. Prior to that, he obtained his MBA from INSEAD and his undergraduate degree in Economics from the American University in Cairo.


Hisham Elaraby

Chief Financial Officer

Sarah Reynolds (they/them) is the Chief Marketing Officer at Udacity. Prior to joining Udacity, Sarah was the head of PTC’s Commercial Marketing organization, where they led a global team that enabled industrial organizations to implement and scale digital transformation strategies that put people first. 

As an openly non-binary executive, Sarah writes and speaks widely about diversity and inclusion, pay equity, the future of work, and the intersection of bias, ethics, and technology. They have contributed to Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Institutional Investor, Training Industry Magazine, and the Society for Human Resources blog, and frequently speak at live and virtual events hosted by the National Association of Manufacturers, the Manufacturing Leadership Council, the Manufacturing Institute, WorldatWork, SHRM, HR Dive, AICPA, and more. You can find them shouting about equality, equity, and inclusive language on Twitter @fairpaymonster.


Sarah Reynolds

Chief Marketing Officer

Samuel Schofield is Udacity’s Chief Revenue Officer and is leading Udacity’s Government Partnership team. He joined Udacity in 2019, and in 2021 became Udacity’s Senior Vice President of Global Enterprise Sales. He has led massive growth in Udacity’s international presence, first building out the international enterprise team and then leading both the international and North American sales teams through numerous high-impact projects, from fundamentals to fully scaled.

Samuel has led global sales teams at IBM, BMC Software, and Cybereason. He holds a First Class Honors Bachelor's degree from Leicester Business School, UK. 


Samuel Schofield

Chief Revenue Officer

Derrick Alesevich is Udacity’s Chief Legal and Administrative Officer, overseeing both the Legal and People teams. He joined Udacity as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, bringing his significant experience maturing and scaling high-growth technology companies. 

Previously, Derrick was General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Optimizely, where he led the company through a successful sale to Insight Partners. Prior to joining Optimizely, Derrick served as Vice President of Legal at Quantcast and Associate General Counsel at 2Wire.

Derrick Alesevich

Chief Legal and Administrative Officer

Ayah Shashaa is a visionary leader as Udacity’s Chief Strategy and Business Operations Officer. She joined Udacity in 2017 as Global Vice President of Societal Impact, developing partnerships and programs that support nation-building with governments and foundations in the Middle East, Africa, North America, Asia, and South America. 

Prior to joining Udacity, Ayah had 10+ years of experience consulting in the U.S. and Middle East, including at McKinsey & Company. She has advised governments and private sector clients alike, and also played a hand in shaping McKinsey’s capability and leadership development strategies. Ayah obtained her MBA from INSEAD and her undergraduate degrees in Industrial Engineering & Management Science and Economics from Northwestern University in Chicago.

Ayah Shashaa

Chief Strategy and Business Operations Officer

Our leadership team comes together with one goal: to help learners, enterprise, and governments prepare for and strengthen the digital workforce of the next generation.

Manifesting the value of exceptional talent.

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<h2>Creating the <span>job-ready digital skills</span> that empower achievement.</h2>

Udacity’s proven playbook is globally scalable, addressing the widespread digital talent shortages that impact growth, productivity, and innovation. We collaborate with enterprises and highly motivated individuals to design a tailored talent transformation journey enabled by our <a href="/enterprise/digital-competencies">Digital Competency Platform</a>.

Our exclusive content is co-created and continually refined with industry leaders. Each Udacity program is deeply focused—eliminating guesswork in selecting the right course. Projects go far beyond step-by-step guides, cultivating the critical thinking required for workplace relevance. Expert mentors unblock learning with personalized support, and verify complete mastery of competencies.

<h2>From democratizing education to <span>talent transformation</span>.</h2>

Udacity began when Stanford instructors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig had a revolutionary idea to offer their "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course online—to anyone, for free. 

Over 160,000 students in more than 190 countries enrolled, demanding a new way to deliver education. A startling discovery emerged: The top 400 students weren’t from Stanford. This revelation sparked a mission to make lifelong learning more equitable and inclusive. Udacity has been expanding opportunities ever since. 

Building on this globally accessible upskilling platform, Udacity evolved into talent transformation. By creating the next level of job-ready digital talent, we equip professionals and organizations to excel in some of the world’s most exciting disciplines.

Advance your career with online courses in programming, data science, artificial intelligence, digital marketing, and more. Built with industry leaders.

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