Education that opens opportunity.

The one lesson I keep coming back to: if a program doesn't actually change what people can do (get the skill, land the job, stabilize their earnings), what was even the point?

20 years in education, building and leading programs for adult learners.

1. 2023 - now

   Co-founder, DriveX Labs

   Partner with leaders to turn their insights into revenue-generating education products that have impact in weeks. 30+ projects, $10M+ in new revenue, including Bedford Education, NurseHub and the first data analytics career accelerator in the Bahamas. Incubating the Execs Who Build community.

2. 2023 - 2024

   COO, Fusion Cyber

   Grew a bootstrapped cybersecurity training startup from $1M to $5.5M in annual revenue. Programs led to career outcomes and salary increases for veterans, military spouses and underrepresented learners.

3. 2021 - 2023

   VP of Product Strategy, Emeritus

   Built online career programs with top universities. Led a 60+ person team across marketing, sales, product and delivery. 10x revenue growth, 6,000+ learners a year.

4. 2017 - 2021

   VP of Education Operations, Chegg (via Bloc and Thinkful)

   Owned the student experience from onboarding to job for 5,000 students a year and a team of 400. Improved student outcomes 40% and retention 60% year over year. Tripled the course portfolio, adding $25M in annual revenue.

5. 2015 - 2017

   Provost, Hack Reactor · Program Manager, Galvanize

   Ran operations for immersive software engineering and data science bootcamps.

6. 2006 - 2015

   ESL teacher to Academic Program Director (Language Trainers, Advance English Academy, ILSC, EF Education First)

   Taught English to adults, then ran language schools of up to 600+ students from 40+ countries.

• “She exemplifies a healthy - and rare - balancing act of aggressively meeting business goals, while aggressively prioritizing the people that she oversees.”

  Kara Gillette

  Cofounder at njuta

• “Erin has an excellent understanding of what it takes to create, develop and operate learning programs while keeping the learner at the very heart of all decision-making.”

  Ashley Chiampo

  former senior colleague

• “I have personally observed her say 'yes' and find solutions while others might say 'can't.'”

  Dwayne G. Hodges, Ed.D

  Academic Director, Wake Forest University

• “She turns chaos into order and makes scalable solutions while maintaining a healthy and happy culture.”

  Gina Houston

  VP Operations at 9amHealth

• “Erin should teach a master class on effective hiring, management, team member fulfillment and retention.”

  Riley End

  COO

• “Erin is the kind of manager whose positive impact sticks with you for life.”

  Emma Holland

  Operations and Program Manager

• “When you need to build an impactful new product, build a complex platform to host it, figure out how to market it, and do it all on schedule and budget, you call DriveX Labs. Truly grateful for such an amazing partnership.”

  Heather Hollis

  COO, NurseHub

• “Students achieved promotions, secured employment, or embarked on internships within just 90 days of completing the programme.”

  Onika Russell

  Digital Transformation & Chief of Staff, Smarter Bahamas

• “Working with DriveX was the best decision we've made. We got to our first students, outcomes, and revenue faster than we could have on our own.”

  Benjamin Newton

  CEO, Bedford Education

• “What stood out most was not just their strategic guidance, but their ability to execute.”

  Alex Hollis

  CEO, NurseHub

I have extremely strong opinions about almost everything when it comes to education. Here are the ones I'll defend all day. Debate me on any of these.

• Build from the outcome.

  What do you want people to be able to DO when they finish? Start there and work backwards. In my bootcamp days we built every course this way, and surprise, that system still works. That's the hill I will die on.

• Learning a tool is easy. Learning to be human is the real work.

  Teaching people to use AI takes days or weeks. Employers keep asking for Curiosity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Judgement, and those take much longer to build. So where do people actually practice them?

• Friction is good for learning.

  "Frictionless" products lead to cognitive offloading and unskilling. The best video games add just the right amount of friction, and the best learning products should too.

• The robots aren't coming for our jobs.

  My whole view of AI and robotics comes from Disney. (I've watched way too many hours of animatronics history. Like to a nerd level.) Disney has spent a fortune trying to build AI-powered characters that act on their own, and they still have almost nothing to show for it. If Disney can't pull it off in a theme park, nobody's robot is ready to walk the streets or teach a classroom.

• AI is a scalpel, not a chainsaw.

  Forcing everyone to use AI and measuring people by how much they use it is a silly leadership decision. GenAI isn't a magic wand. It works when it's applied surgically and thoughtfully, and humans still have to do the hard work of understanding the problem.

• Validate before you scale.

  Assume you're wrong until you have evidence. Then go fast.

Featured writing

• "Add a little bit of love": my take on a $100M EdTech product nobody can explain.→(opens LinkedIn in a new tab)
• Technology needs more friction: what video games can teach AI product builders.→(opens LinkedIn in a new tab)
• Learning a tool is easy, learning to be human is the real work: takeaways from Handshake's AI-Ready Workforce event.→(opens LinkedIn in a new tab)
• Why I support banning AI in classrooms until high school.→(opens LinkedIn in a new tab)
• The robots aren't ready: what failed security robot pilots tell us about AI in classrooms.→(opens LinkedIn in a new tab)
• Chainsaw vs. scalpel: what Duolingo's CEO got wrong about AI adoption.→(opens LinkedIn in a new tab)

AI lowered the barrier to building, and I'm having way too much fun with it. My favorite kind of AI is something fun that makes my life easier. The hard part isn't building anymore. It's building well.

• 

  Guess the World

  A retro-style geography game I built for my kids. Race the clock to find all 196 countries, continent by continent, or switch to US states mode (yes, I'm still that kid with the flashcards). Every correct guess unlocks a fun fact, there are hints when you're stuck, and a leaderboard for bragging rights. I'm unreasonably proud of it.

  Try it → (opens in a new tab)
• 

  Learner health dashboard

  A risk-first view of a cohort for coaches and program teams. It pulls live signals from the community and the learning app (1:1s, onboarding, lessons completed, events attended) and sorts every learner into At risk, Needs attention, On track or Thriving so nobody slips through the cracks. Built from the outcome: what does a team need to see to keep every learner on track to finish? Built for a client and then recreated with mocked up data.

  Try it → (opens in a new tab)

Let's build something fun!

At DriveX Labs, we build and grow education businesses. We partner with companies, universities, foundations, investors and operators who have an audience, an asset or an insight, and we turn it into a revenue-generating education product that launches in weeks, without long-term fixed costs. We're not a dev shop. Everyone on our team comes from outcomes-based education.

DriveX Labs by the numbers

• 30+

  projects delivered

• $10M+

  in new revenue

• 70+

  operators deployed

• 250k+

  learners impacted

How I get things done

1. 1

   Validate the opportunity.It always starts with an in-person deep dive. What are we doing? Who are we doing it for? What's our goal, and how will we know when we've reached it? Then we research the market and the audience to find what's actually worth building.

2. 2

   Build and launch.We assemble the team (research, product, marketing, sales, advisors), get to market fast and refine based on what real learners do.

3. 3

   Prepare to scale.We hand off to a vetted team with playbooks and systems, and step back as the business proves itself. Once there's product-market fit, our partners at Nuko bring in revenue operations and sales.

Selected work

• Bedford Education

  We embedded as the founding team for the first school for the creator economy, from idea to product, team and go-to-market. 50 enrollments, 60% pilot completion and 13 Creators in Residence.

  Read the case study → (opens in a new tab)

• NurseHub

  We built a custom NCLEX prep platform that off-the-shelf tools couldn't handle. 2,000+ questions live at launch, on schedule, and a first paying customer within 24 hours.

  Read the case study → (opens in a new tab)

• Smarter Bahamas × University of The Bahamas

  We launched the country's first data analytics career accelerator. 272 applications, 87% retention, 100% graduation of eligible students, and 95% of eligible grads with career outcomes within 90 days.

  Read the case study → (opens in a new tab)

• Emeritus

  I was hired to build the career skills product line, and built the programs, products and team from the ground up. 21 programs launched in 3 years with 8 top universities including MIT, Columbia, Northwestern and UC Berkeley, and a product line grown to $30M annually.