First Bertelsmann Education Day in New York
“With today’s conference, we are officially celebrating the founding of Bertelsmann’s new division and third strategic pillar: Education!” With these words Kay Krafft, CEO Bertelsmann Education Group, launched the first Bertelsmann Education Day on Thursday morning in New York. There, the founding of the Bertelsmann Education Group, the business unit established for the growing activities in the education sector, was announced yesterday.
In his welcoming speech to the more than 100 participants at Columbia University, Krafft disclosed Bertelsmann’s motivation, besides the enormous commercial opportunities, for establishing the new education division: “We want to enhance people’s lives through the use of innovative educational approaches and emerging technology,” he said, adding that Bertelsmann is determined to help develop and implement a truly unique approach to learning in the 21st century.
Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe addressed the role of the education business for the intended construction of a new Bertelsmann and gave an overview of the Group’s current situation. The CEO made it clear that, “Education is a key growth driver for Bertelsmann and a central factor if we are to achieve our targeted Group revenues of €20 billion.”
Colleagues from the Corporate Center, core businesses and above all the new education companies grasped the chance to get to know each other and explore opportunities for collaboration – thus fulfilling the main objective of the First Education Day. The participants networked for all they were worth during the breaks and workshops – and seized the opportunity to present their respective markets, businesses, strategies and ideas on the big stage.
The presentations made it clear how well the individual companies can be linked into a coherent greater whole, with the aim of promoting lifelong and especially digital learning catering to the specific needs of the working world. First up were David Figuli, Doug Keiller and Ricardo Phillips of Arist Education System and its Alliant International University. They spoke among others about the huge healthcare market, especially in the U.S. Afterwards, one of the founding fathers of Relias Learning, Mike Mutka, recalled the early days of the online learning provider before outlining its current situation. He sees the fact that Relias has been part of Bertelsmann for nearly a year now as “an opportunity that we have been working towards all these years.”
Like Relias and Arist, the educational service Synergis also sees its affiliation with Bertelsmann as holding great advantages for its future growth, as Norm Allgood, Synergis founder and CEO, emphasized. He also reminded the listeners that education is not only of major economic significance, but is at least as formative for culture and society.
