Our Board of Directors and Executive Leadership bring strong, effective and diverse leadership to every aspect of our business. We are committed to creating long-term, sustainable value for all company stakeholders.
Omid Kordestani
Omar Abbosh
Sally Johnson
Sherry Coutu, CBE
Omid Kordestani
Chair of the Nomination & Governance Committee
Appointed 1 March 2022
Omid is an international businessman who serves on the boards of Klarna Bank AB and Klarna Holding AB and is a Council Member for Balderton Capital. He was Executive Chair of Twitter, Inc. between October 2015 and May 2020, and a Board Member until October 2022. From August 2014 to August 2015, Omid served as Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer at Google and previously from May 1999 to April 2009 as Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Business Development.
From 1995 to 1999, Omid served as Vice President of Business Development at Netscape Communications Corporation. Prior to joining Netscape Communications Corporation, Omid held positions in business development, product management and marketing at The 3DOCompany, Go Corporation and Hewlett-Packard Company.
Omar Abbosh
Appointed as Chief Executive 8 January 2024.
Omar Abbosh has a career spanning more than 30 years driving growth and transformation for leading multinational companies. He comes to Pearson with a background steeped in technology and innovation, and with a deep understanding of how to shape and execute successful strategies in a world of disruption.
Most recently, Omar was the President of Microsoft Industry Solutions with responsibility for driving sales, service, and solutions across Microsoft’s largest customers. While there he led industry and technical business units, including strategy, engineering, partnering, and sales teams that shaped product road maps and strategic campaigns. Prior to Microsoft, Omar spent three decades at Accenture where he helped to orchestrate the company’s digital transformation and where he led a large and highly successful business unit. He served in numerous senior leadership roles at Accenture, including Chief Strategy Officer and ultimately as Chief Executive of the global Communications, Technology and Media business.
Omar also serves as a non-executive board member for Zuora, Inc. an enterprise SaaS company. He holds a degree in electronic engineering and information sciences from the University of Cambridge and a master’s degree in business administration from INSEAD.
Sally Johnson
Appointed 24 April 2020.
Sally joined Pearson in 2000 and has held various finance and operations roles across the business, both at a corporate level and within the divisions, including The Penguin Group. She brings to the Board extensive commercial and strategic finance experience, as well as expertise in transformation, treasury, tax, risk management, business and financial operations, investor relations and mergers and acquisitions. She has held various senior-level roles across the business, most recently as Deputy CFO of Pearson.
Sally is a Non-Executive Director of Rentokil Initial plc and Chair of its Audit Committee, a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and trained at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She was also a Trustee for the Pearson Pension Plan from 2012 to 2018.
Sherry Coutu, CBE
Chair of the Remuneration Committee and Member of the Nomination & Governance Committee
Appointed 1 May 2019
Sherry is an experienced non-executive director, having held numerous senior leadership positions, including Chair, Senior Independent Director, and Chief Executive Officer in the financial services, technology, and education sectors.
Presently, Sherry also Chairs the Remuneration Committee at Raspberry Pi, the world’s largest single-board computer company and Founders4Schools, the UK’s largest transition-to-work charity.
Sherry is an experienced non-executive director which includes the London Stock Exchange Group plc, DCMS, Zoopla plc, RM plc, The Scaleup Institute, Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment (2006-2019). She has also previously acted as an advisor to LinkedIn, the National Gallery, the Royal Society, and NESTA.
Prior to her portfolio career, Sherry founded several technology companies and invested in 70 tech start-up companies and five venture capital firms.
Alison Dolan
Alex Hardiman
Esther Lee
Graeme Pitkethly
Alison Dolan
Member of the Audit and Remuneration Committees
Appointed 1 June 2023
Alison was the Chief Financial Officer of Rightmove plc, a position she held between September 2020 and September 2024. In January 2025, she will join the Board of Marks and Spencer Group plc as Chief Financial Officer. She brings to the Board extensive commercial and operational finance experience, specifically in digital businesses. Prior to Rightmove, she held several senior financial positions at Sky plc, including Group Treasurer, Director of Finance and was the Deputy Managing Director at Sky Business. She later moved to News UK to serve as the Chief Strategy Officer at the forefront of the business's digital transformation.
Alex Hardiman
Member of the Audit and Reputation & Responsibility Committees
Appointed 1 June 2023
With more than 15 years of experience in media and technology, Alex brings deep expertise in consumer product strategy and growth, scaling subscription and digital advertising businesses, and high-quality journalism and content. Alex currently serves as The New York Times’ Chief Product Officer where she oversees the company’s News, Cooking, Games and Audio products that power its digital business. She also leads The Times’s enterprise-wide approach to generative AI. Alex previously spent a decade at The New York Times in several leadership roles before leaving for Facebook in 2016 where she served as Head of News Products, overseeing news experiences for Facebook consumers and publishers. Alex also spent time at The Atlantic as their Chief Business and Product Officer where she relaunched the company’s consumer offerings and subscription model.
Esther Lee
Member of the Nomination & Governance and Remuneration Committees
Appointed 1 February 2022
Esther brings significant experience to the Pearson Board through her prior executive management roles in developing customer strategies to drive growth, global marketing and branding, driving digital transformation and building high-performance teams.
She has a long track record of senior leadership roles working for global consumer-facing brands. Most recently, she served as Executive Vice President - Global Chief Marketing Officer at MetLife Inc. Previously, Esther served as Senior Vice President - Brand Marketing, Advertising and Sponsorships for AT&T, and she has served as CEO of North America and President of Global Brands for Euro RSCG Worldwide. Prior to that, she served for five years as Global Chief Creative Officer for The Coca-Cola Company.
Esther is a Board member at The Clorox Company where she chairs the Nomination & Governance Committee and a Non-Executive Director of Experian plc.
Graeme Pitkethly
Chair of the Audit Committee and Member of the Reputation & Responsibility and Nomination & Governance Committees
Appointed 1 May 2019
Graeme was Chief Financial Officer and a Board member of Unilever plc until December 2023. He joined Unilever in 2002 and, prior to his appointment as the CFO, was responsible for its UK and Ireland business. He also held a number of senior financial and commercial roles within Unilever and spent the earlier part of his career in senior corporate finance roles in the telecommunications industry. Graeme served as Vice President of Financial Planning and Vice President of Corporate Development at FLAG Telecom and started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Graeme is a Non-Executive Director of Sandoz Group AG and Chair of its Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee. He is a Vice Chair of the Task Force on Climate- related Financial Disclosures, a Member of the Strathclyde University Centre for Sustainable Development and is a Chartered Accountant.
Annette Thomas
Lincoln Wallen
Annette Thomas
Chair of the Reputation & Responsibility Committee and Member of the Nomination & Governance and Remuneration Committees
Appointed 1 October 2021
Annette has a 25-year track record in leading global publishing and data analytics businesses, across academic, educational, and consumer media verticals. Most recently, she served as CEO of Guardian Media Group, a position she held until June 2021. Prior to this, Annette was CEO of the Web of Science Group at Clarivate Analytics, a data, analytics, and software business focused on research and higher education. She has also served as CEO of Macmillan Publishers and led the digital and global transformation of Nature Publishing Group.
She is a Non-Executive Director of Schroders plc and currently serves as Senior Advisor to General Atlantic. Her previous non-executive experience includes serving as a Trustee of Yale University, Non-Executive Director at Clarivate Analytics (2017), and as a board member for Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment (2019-2020). She has also previously acted as an advisor to Creative Commons and Bain Capital.
Lincoln Wallen
Member of the Audit and Reputation & Responsibility Committees
Appointed 1 January 2016
Lincoln has extensive experience in the technology and media industries, and is a Non-Executive Director of Improbable MV, which governs the MSquared Network of web2 and web3 services.
He was previously CTO of Improbable Worlds, a technology start-up supplying cloud hosting, networking and technology services to the video game industry. Lincoln was CEO of DWA Nova, a Software-as-a-Service spin-out of DreamWorks Animation Studios in Los Angeles, a position he held until 2017. He worked at DreamWorks Animation for nine years in a variety of leadership roles including CTO and Head of Animation Technology. He was formerly CTO at Electronic Arts Mobile, leading their entry into the mobile gaming business internationally. Lincoln is a Non-Executive Director of the Smith Institute for Industrial Mathematics and Systems Engineering, and Varjo, a manufacturer of XR/VR headsets for professional markets. His early career involved 20 years of IT and mathematics research, including as a Reader in Computer Science at Oxford. Lincoln holds a PhD in AI.
Omar Abbosh
Sally Johnson
Tom ap Simon
Ali Bebo
Omar Abbosh
Appointed as Chief Executive Officer 8 January 2024.
Omar Abbosh has a career spanning more than 30 years driving growth and transformation for leading multinational companies. He comes to Pearson with a background steeped in technology and innovation, and with a deep understanding of how to shape and execute successful growth strategies in a world of disruption.
Most recently, Omar was President, Industry Solutions at Microsoft with responsibility for driving sales, service, and solutions across Microsoft’s largest customers. While there he led industry and technical business units, including strategy, engineering, partnering, and sales teams that shaped product road maps, sales campaigns and business performance.
Prior to Microsoft, Omar spent three decades at Accenture where he helped to orchestrate the company’s digital transformation and where he led a large and highly successful business unit. He served in numerous senior leadership roles at Accenture, including Chief Strategy Officer and ultimately as Chief Executive of the global Communications, Media and Technology business.
Omar also serves as a non-executive board member for Zuora Inc, an enterprise SaaS company. He holds a degree in electronic engineering and information sciences from the University of Cambridge and a master’s degree in business administration from INSEAD.
Sally Johnson
Appointed 24 April 2020.
Sally joined Pearson in 2000, and has held various finance and operations roles across The Penguin Group, the education business and at a corporate level. She brings to the Board extensive commercial and strategic finance experience as well as transformation, treasury, tax, risk management, business and financial operations, investor relations and M&A expertise. She has held various senior level roles across the business, most recently as Deputy CFO of Pearson. Sally is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and trained at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She was also a Trustee for the Pearson Pension Plan from 2012 to 2018.
Tom ap Simon
Tom has 20 years of international business and finance experience. At Pearson, he has led the Virtual Schools business, worked in finance for the emerging markets businesses and led M&A activity in the US. Previously, he worked in investment banking at RW Baird. Tom holds an MA in Economics and Politics from the University of Edinburgh.
Ali Bebo
Ali is a seasoned C-suite executive with over 25 years of experience building culture for transformative business performance across multiple industries. Prior to joining Pearson, she was an executive officer and CHRO for Hologic, Inc., a global medical technology company. Prior to Hologic, she held various HR leadership roles with the speciality retail company, ANN INC.
Ginny Cartwright Ziegler
Gio Giovannelli
Vishaal Gupta
Sulaekha ‘Sue’ Kolloru Barger
Ginny Cartwright Ziegler
Ginny leads global marketing and communications strategies focused on driving Pearson’s market expansion, accelerating revenue growth, elevating brand awareness, fostering people engagement and infusing advanced technologies to create exceptional experiences for customers.
With more than 30 years of experience leading large-scale, global marketing and communications strategies, Ginny has a proven track record of scaling businesses, reinventing technology-enabled services, forging valuable partnerships and catapulting global brands to the top of their markets. Throughout her career, Ginny has guided the marketing and communications strategies for some of the world’s leading brands, including HP, Deutsche Bank, General Motors, IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, MIT, NCR, Sun, Philips, and Xerox PARC.
Before joining Pearson, Ginny served as chief marketing and communications officer for Accenture North America. She was pivotal in driving four years of double-digit growth for the company’s largest market, elevating Accenture’s brand, and inspiring a collaborative, purpose-focused culture. Prior posts during her 16-year career at Accenture included leading international teams that advanced the company’s cloud practice to the top market position and helped achieve triple-digit growth for its cybersecurity and talent and organization businesses.
Recently named as One of the Most Influential Women in the Bay Area by San Francisco Business Times, Ginny is chair of strategic planning and executive board director for San Francisco Opera Guild, which provides award-winning K-12 arts education programs to more than 64,000 children in over 200 Bay Area schools. She is also a strategic advisor for Realize the Dream, a movement led by Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King to rally communities to perform 100 million service hours by 2029, the 100th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
Born in the UK, Ginny earned a Bachelor of Arts with joint honors in modern languages, literature, and linguistics (French and Spanish) from the University of Bristol. She also attended Université Paris Sorbonne. She’s worked in Barcelona, London, Munich, New York, and Paris and now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two sons.
Gio Giovannelli
Gio has over 25 years of international business experience, including four CEO roles in Brazil. Previous board roles include BOVESPA-listed Natura and CVC Viagens. Gio graduated from Bocconi University, holds an Economics PhD and is an OPM graduate of Harvard Business School.
Vishaal Gupta
Vishaal Gupta is a highly accomplished business leader with 29 years of global experience in the enterprise technology space. He has a proven track record of scaling digital businesses and building high performance teams.
He joined Pearson from Accenture where he was a Senior Managing Director and member of the Global Leadership Council. During his tenure at Accenture, Vishaal has served in several leadership roles including Europe Technology Sales, Solutions and Ecosystem lead, Google Cloud Platform Sales lead and Global Technology Industry lead for Telecoms and Media. Prior to Accenture, Vishaal worked with leading technology services organizations like Tech Mahindra and HCL Technologies in addition to co-founding product start-up Unimobile.
Sulaekha ‘Sue’ Kolloru Barger
Sue has more than 20 years of global strategy and corporate experience. Previously, she held engineering roles at technology companies. Sue holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Ottawa in Canada. She has served on several non-profit boards and councils focused on diversity and STEM.
Cinthia Nespoli
Tony Prentice
Dave Treat
Art Valentine
Cinthia Nespoli
Cinthia has over 20 years of international legal and compliance experience. Previously, she held leadership roles in legal and compliance at multinational companies. Cinthia was admitted to the Brazilian bar in 2004 and earned her law degree from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas as well as a post-graduate degree in tax law from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo.
Tony Prentice
Tony has more than 25 years of experience in consumer-led product management in companies, including SEMA4, American Express, and Starbucks. He brings extensive expertise in strategic product development, and consumer marketing. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.
Dave Treat
Dave brings 27 years of expertise and industry leadership in technology, financial services, and strategic business transformation. He joins Pearson from Accenture where he most recently served as a Senior Managing Director leading their Innovation Incubation Group focused on helping clients implement innovative new technologies like Generative AI, Spatial Computing, Web 3, and Quantum Computing. Dave also served in other Accenture leadership roles including as Global Technology Lead for Capital Markets, Co-chair of the New York Fintech Innovation Lab, Global Technology Incubation Lead and Global Blockchain Practice Lead.
Dave helped to found and has served on several technology and industry boards including the Linux Hyperledger Foundation, Linux Open Wallet Foundation, Digital Dollar Project, and the Global Business Blockchain Council. Prior to Accenture, Dave was a Director at Deloitte and an Executive Director at UBS Investment Bank, working across technology innovation and transformation in both roles.
Dave earned a Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Michigan and a degree in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Art Valentine
Art has more than 30 years of leadership experience in assessments, testing, and technology. Prior to his 16 years at Pearson serving as a senior leader of Pearson VUE and as Managing Director of Pearson Clinical Assessment, Art worked at global technology organisations, including Accenture, and Promissor, which was acquired by Pearson in 2006. Art earned his BS in Mathematical Science/Computer Science from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Marykay Wells
Marykay Wells
Marykay has over 30 years of strategic planning and large, global technology transformation experience. Prior to joining Pearson, Marykay had CIO roles at Nortel, Tekelec (acquired by Oracle) and Extreme Networks. Marykay holds a BS degree in Computer Information Science from Clarkson University and is a member the Salesforce CIO Advisory Board, MGT Board of Directors, and is a Board Member of the non-profit Rewriting the Code (advancing Women in Tech).