BenchPrep Announces Varvara Alva as New Chief Financial Officer of BenchPrep


Veteran Executive Brings Additional Finance Expertise and Leadership to BenchPrep’s Growing Team

CHICAGO, Ill., Nov. 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BenchPrep, the configurable cloud-based learning platform that delivers the best learning experience and drives revenue for nonprofits, corporations, and training companies, today announced the appointment of Varvara Alva as its Chief Financial Officer. Alva brings an extensive background in strategic finance, scaling financial operations, and capital raising to BenchPrep, along with a passion to help expand the company’s leadership position in the edtech market. This move completes BenchPrep’s 2019 leadership team additions with the company recently hiring Vice Presidents of Learning Design & Strategy, Product, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success.

Alva has more than 18 years of corporate finance and management experience with high growth software-as-a-service and technology companies during private and public ownership. Most recently, Alva was the Vice President, Treasurer, Head of Investor Relations at Gogo and helped lead its IPO in 2013. Alva was also heavily involved in raising capital to fund the company’s growth, scale its operations multi-fold, and expand internationally. Prior to Gogo, Alva played a significant role in driving growth and profitability for eCollege, which was sold to Pearson PLC for $477 million.

“It is so exciting to welcome Varvara to the BenchPrep team as our Chief Financial Officer,” said Ashish Rangnekar, CEO of BenchPrep. “The depth and breadth of Varvara’s experience with leading finance teams at high-growth tech organizations is a huge asset for BenchPrep now as we’re moving forward on a similar path. Varvara’s strategic and analytical approach will ensure BenchPrep is well capitalized to successfully scale our business and meet our growth objectives.”

BenchPrep’s learner-centric platform is designed to help associations, credentialing bodies, and training organizations deliver a highly engaging and effective learning experience. Its omnichannel delivery incorporates personalized learning pathways, robust instructional design principles, gamification, and near real-time analytics that allow organizations across all industries to achieve their goals.

“I am thrilled to join BenchPrep as CFO and look forward to continuing to drive growth and success for our education partners,” said Alva. “With our significant market opportunities, we are investing in scaling up our capabilities to deliver on our growth objectives. It is a privilege to join a highly talented group of people who share similar core values as I do of passion, collaboration, and innovation.”

BenchPrep has seen tremendous growth in revenue, customers and employee count over the last few years. In 2019, the company announced its series C round of funding for $20M led by Jump Capital and Owl Ventures.

About BenchPrep
BenchPrep is a configurable cloud-based learning platform that delivers the best learning experience and drives revenue for nonprofits (credentialing bodies & associations), corporations, and training companies. With an award-winning learner-centric platform, BenchPrep increases learner engagement, improves long-term learner retention, and reduces dropout rates. Many of the largest credentialing bodies, associations, and training organizations in the world now deliver learning programs through BenchPrep, including ACT, AAMC, CFA Institute, CompTIA, GMAC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HR Certification Institute, Richardson Sales Training, ASCM, AIA, Relias, NCBE, ProLiteracy, Hobsons, McGraw Hill Education, and OnCourse Learning. BenchPrep’s platform has been used by 6 million learners to attain academic and professional success. To discover more about BenchPrep, please visit benchprep.com.

Media Contact:
Jon Aderson
Director of Marketing
BenchPrep
312-650-5135
jon@benchprep.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c5f1a256-33bb-4f04-884f-f1bc6b6f2549

Varvara Headshot