About Varsity Tutors

Chuck Cohn is the CEO and founder of Varsity Tutors, one of the fastest-growing educational platforms in the country. Under Chuck's leadership, the company helps students connect to more than 20,000 instructors nationally. Chuck launched Varsity Tutors during college in an Introduction to Entrepreneurship course at Washington University in St. Louis. He bootstrapped the company and ran it on nights and weekends while working as a venture capitalist. Chuck, who lives in St. Louis with his wife, serves as a formal advisor to several startups and has been recognized with multiple awards, including the St. Louis Business Journal's 30 Under 30 list and Under30CEO's Top Young Entrepreneurs to Watch. Chuck serves on the Board of Directors of Gateway Media, an Internet company with 90 million monthly visitors.

Ian Clarkson, president and COO of Varsity Tutors, oversees the Company’s product, technology, sales, and tutor recruitment efforts. Prior to joining Varsity Tutors, Ian served as the chief operating officer of Sears Home Services where he oversaw operations in product, technology, sales and field operations, among other roles, with 14,000 people reporting through him. Prior to his role at Sears, he spent 15 years at Amazon, where he worked in a variety of functions including technology, operations, service and retail. Clarkson ran the Seller Services business for Europe, overseeing a variety of products and teams in nine countries. He has a proven track record in building consumer digital products, including launching AmazonFresh as employee No. 1. Ian lives in Seattle with his wife, Tracy, and their 8-year-old twins.

Ward Vuillemot oversees all engineering and technology activity at Varsity Tutors. Since joining the company in 2016, Ward has been leading the effort to mature our engineering organization, as well as our efforts to migrate to services oriented architecture (SOA). Prior to working at Varsity Tutors, Ward held various engineering and product roles building scalable, distributed systems for Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, and Sears Home Services. He is a graduate of University of Washington.

Kevin Gaugush became Varsity Tutor’s Chief People Officer in 2015. Before joining Varsity Tutors, he served as the Chief People Officer of kgb and, previously, Vice President, Human Resources for the Sports & Entertainment division of ARAMARK. Prior to ARAMARK, Kevin spent five years at Honeywell (formerly AlliedSignal). Kevin earned his bachelor's degree in economics from Yale University and holds an MBA from the University of Michigan. He has served on the Advisory Council of Brigham Young University’s Facility Management program and on Washington State University's Hospitality Business Management Advisory Committee. He is also a regular guest speaker at Cornell University at both the Hospitality School and Business School.

Mark Simner is the CFO of Varsity Tutors, where he has responsibility for general financial management, strategy, business intelligence and reporting. Prior to joining the team in 2015, Mark served as Vice President of Industry Analytics at Catamaran, a pharmacy benefits management company. Additionally, he has previously worked as Chief Financial Officer for Accertify, Inc. (an American Express company); Vice President, Controller for Asset Backed Securitization Operations at American Express; and Vice President, Controller for General Motors Asset Management. Additionally, Mark led the global rollout of the Sarbanes Oxley compliance efforts at GMAC Financial Services. He is originally from the United Kingdom, where he is a Chartered Management Accountant in England and Wales and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. He received an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business where he graduated with distinction. He resides in St. Louis with his wife and children.

Heidi Robinson, Chief Product Officer, is responsible for product management and design. Prior to joining Varsity Tutors, Heidi served as VP of Product & Customer Experience at Sears Home Services, Pro.com, and Nordstrom Direct. Heidi also spent 14 years at Amazon.com, where she led product management for Kindle retail and AmazonFresh, among other efforts. Heidi has a bachelor's degree from Pacific Lutheran University and an MBA from the University of Washington. Heidi lives in Seattle with her husband and children.

James Coyle, Chief Customer Officer, is responsible for our sales efforts and ensuring that we achieve our sales goals and transform how people worldwide access expertise. Most recently, James was the president of the Home Appliance business at Sears with full profit and loss responsibility for a $5 billion business and people management of seven thousand employees. Prior to that he was at Amazon for seven years where he held a variety of roles from running a call center in Manila, to running their Electronics and Video Games businesses. Prior to Amazon, he worked in finance at Microsoft and Siemens; James has a finance degree from Indiana University.

Christopher C. Swenson, vice president and General Counsel, began working with Varsity Tutors as its outside counsel shortly after the company started. He became Vice President and General Counsel in 2015 after 19 years in private practice. Chris came to Varsity Tutors from the national law firm of Polsinelli PC, an 800-attorney full-service firm, where he lead the Startup Ventures Group of the St. Louis office. Chris received his law degree from University of Missouri-Kansas City's School of Law in 1996 with distinction/Order of Bench and Robe, and received his BSBA with distinction and BA from Washington University in St. Louis in 1993. Chris, who resides in St. Louis, has a wife and three children; he serves on the board of Angels' Arms, a nonprofit dedicated to helping sibling groups stay together during foster care before finding permanent homes.

Greg Stahl is the vice president of marketing at Varsity Tutors, where he oversees all brand, direct response and content marketing initiatives, as well as the company’s Learning Tools team. Prior to joining Varsity Tutors in early 2015, Greg worked in marketing and sales strategy at Google, where he managed a team covering Google's largest media and creative agency relationships. At Google, Greg negotiated multi-year advertising deals with agency holding companies, created internal and external analytical and productivity tools, and drove growth initiatives spanning Google's advertising product suite. Before Google, Greg worked in investment banking for J.P. Morgan, advising on mergers, acquisitions, and debt and equity capital raises for Fortune 500 corporations. Greg graduated Summa Cum Laude from Babson College. He lives with his fiancée in St. Louis.