Converge appoints James Sanders as its next CEO

NEW YORK, Sept. 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Converge – a leader empowering schools and districts with actionable data and accelerating educational technology, named James Sanders as its chief executive officer after an extensive national search. A seasoned and experienced leader in the education and edtech industries, Sanders joins Converge after leading Breakout EDU, the immersive learning games platform he founded in 2015 that he drove to a successful acquisition.

"James has dedicated his career to harnessing the promise and power of technology to improve student outcomes and empower educators," said Erin Mote, founder and chairwoman of ConvergeEDU's Board of Directors. "We believe James' unparalleled experience and commitment to our mission and values will unlock even more opportunities for Converge to help close the opportunity gap by bringing actionable data to schools and districts."

In his new role, Sanders will lead Converge's founding after being incubated at an education nonprofit, InnovateEDU, driving a new and powerful model for aligned social impact. Currently, 23 leading school districts and charter management organizations are implementing Converge's cutting-edge technology tools.

"Converge has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform teaching and learning by harnessing the power of high-quality data," Sanders said, adding, "Through this work, we can ensure that every child is seen, heard and provided an equal opportunity to thrive."

Sanders began his career in education as a classroom teacher in Los Angeles, where he was the first teacher to go entirely paperless with Chromebooks in the classroom. Throughout his career in education, he has founded two edtech companies and served as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow during the Obama Administration. Sanders also served as the innovation manager for KIPP Public Schools Northern California, where he helped teachers and schools leverage the power of technology to create opportunities for student creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. He oversaw the development and implementation of blended learning and technology integration plans.

Converge's Landing Zone and Cortex solutions make it easy for schools and districts to modernize their data ecosystems, improve student outcomes, and empower administrators, teachers, and students with better data-driven decision-making.

• Landing Zone helps integrate school and district data into one integrated, securely managed, user-friendly data ecosystem. Education organizations often have to handle multiple siloed data systems, making it difficult to understand student performance fully and needs across the district. With Landing Zone, Converge handles the time-consuming processes of extracting, loading and validating data from all your various systems so your data teams and educators can focus on using data to find insights and make critical decisions.
• Cortex is the next-generation integrated learning management system. Cortex offers LMS functionality that can create personalized learning progressions for students, which allows students to own their data and drive their learning. The platform allows students and teachers to track the completion of a progression across goals and subjects through a common data visualization for mastery of content.

About Converge
At Converge, our mission is to help close the opportunity gap by bringing actionable data to schools and districts using best practices in data integration, interoperability standards, and visualization. We empower educators and students with the critical information they need when they need it.

Learn more about Converge here.

SOURCE Converge