Washington — Oct. 15
Michael L. Chasen has announced that he will step down as president, CEO and director of Blackboard Inc. at the end of the year. Chasen will be replaced by Jay Bhatt, president and CEO of Progress Software.
Chasen co-founded Blackboard in 1997 and oversaw the company’s growth from just a handful of employees and a few clients to a workforce of more than 3,000. Chasen also oversaw the completion of more than 20 acquisitions and the company’s transition back to private ownership in 2011 after its acquisition by Providence Equity Partners for $1.7 billion.
In the last year Chasen has led a number of strategic initiatives including the merger with Edline, a provider of complementary K-12 technology products, and the launch of a new focus on open source supported by the acquisitions of Moodlerooms and NetSpot.
Bhatt recently announced that he would step down in December as president, CEO and director of Progress Software, a publicly traded global software company.
Before joining Progress, Bhatt served as senior vice president of Autodesk Inc., where he ran the global architecture, engineering and construction services business; prior to that he was responsible for Autodesk’s corporate development, business development and strategic planning.
Bhatt joined Autodesk in 2001 when it acquired Buzzsaw.com, a cloud-based software company, where Bhatt served as CFO and head of corporate and business development.
Source: Blackboard Inc.
