Jonathan Grayer, Chairman and CEO of Imagine Learning, has been an executive, an owner, a founder, and a growth investor. In episode seven of Private Market Talks, Jonathan takes us through his history as CEO and Chairman of Kaplan; founder of Weld North; partnerships with KKR, Silverlake and Onex; and management and investment in Imagine Learning, which today is the largest provider of K-12 digital curriculum to U.S. school systems.
Jonathan also shares his thoughts about assessing talent, and what it takes to be a successful operator and investor, including why the things that go wrong are just as important as those that go right.
Peter Antoszyk: Welcome to Private Market Talks, a Proskauer podcast. I'm your host, Peter Antoszyk. Today, my guest is Jonathan Grayer. Jonathan is the Chairman and CEO of Imagine Learning, a leading digital education technology company focused on developing digital curriculum and tools for pre-K and K-12 students. Jonathan previously served as the Chairman and CEO of Kaplan, Inc., a global education and test prep company, after graduating Harvard Business School.
During our conversation, Jonathan talks about how, as a 26-year-old CEO and Chairman, he was able to grow Kaplan from $80 million to $2.3 billion in revenue when he retired from the company in 2008. As a result of his incredible success, in 2004 BusinessWeek named him as one of the best managers of the year for his leadership work with Kaplan. Subsequently he founded Weld North in 2010 in partnership with KKR, and later he entered into a strategic partnership with Silver Lake Partners.
Since founding Weld North, he has made over 30 investments in growth stage companies, the most prominent being Imagine Learning. Jonathan draws on his extensive experience on driving growth in businesses and investing private capital in growth stage companies to discuss how he assesses talent. He shares lessons learned and what he might have done differently. He also describes how he structured a unique arrangement with KKR and Silver Lake.
You'll find a full transcript of this episode at PrivateMarketTalks.com as well as links to other useful information. And please, don't forget to subscribe and click "like" after listening. And now, without further delay, my conversation with Jonathan Grayer.
Peter Antoszyk: Jonathan, welcome to Private Market Talks. Appreciate you joining us today.
Jonathan Grayer: I'm glad to be here, Peter.
Peter Antoszyk: So, we're going to dive right into it. You've built two companies, first as chairman and CEO; you took Kaplan, the famous test preparation company, from $80 million in revenue in 1994 to over $2 billion in revenue by 2007. Later you formed Weld North in partnership with KKR; and since founding, you've made over 30 investments in growth stage companies, most notably Imagine Learning — which I want to get to a little bit later on. But I'm really interested in, given the fact that you've been on both sides from an operational standpoint as well as an investor standpoint, your views on leadership and team building. From that perspective, I'd like to start with your experience in building Kaplan. How do you think about driving growth of that company and what worked and what didn't?
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