Wendy Colby is Senior Vice President of Innovation & New Ventures at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where her primary focus is on new product and business creation designed to revitalize, empower and transform the art and business of teaching and learning.
Wendy joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2006 as part of a new management team focused on establishing the company’s first business unit for digital media and learning. Since that time, she has spearheaded a range of new growth initiatives and partnerships with education and industry leaders, successfully guiding market and business strategy from product conception and customer acquisition through commercial release.
For the past 10 years, Wendy has enthusiastically worked to advance new business models and opportunities for learning as both an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur. She has served in senior executive roles for several high profile Silicon Valley interactive technology startups – overseeing the genesis of new online offerings, steering brand value and market and sales execution, and building growth models that yielded successful organic growth, IPO and acquisition transactions.
In addition, Wendy spent nearly five years as a Global Senior Vice President at Thomson Reuters, initially focused on establishing a digital learning footprint for this Fortune 500 in the higher education and corporate segments. Her achievements included introducing a series of new synchronous and asynchronous offerings, opening new markets outside of the US, and building value and dominance through a focused acquisition rollup strategy.
Wendy’s full career experience ranges from internet startup to enterprise technology and collaboration systems, and sectors including K-12 and higher education, media, travel, and hospitality.
Wendy holds a Bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University, and a Master’s Degree from University of San Francisco. She is also on the board of the Shanti Foundation for Peace, a non-profit organization committed to promoting peace and nonviolence through education and the arts in schools and communities.
