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Newsela, Fast Growing Education Tech Company, Hires Holly Cafiero as Chief People Officer

Newsela, one of the fastest growing tech companies in K-12 education with presence in 90% of U.S. schools and more than 150 countries worldwide, has appointed Holly Cafiero as Chief People Officer (CPO). Newsela partnered with Frederickson Partners on the executive search.

In her role as CPO, Holly will be responsible for building and leading the People function within Newsela. Newsela values collaboration wherever its employees are located, so the organization will lean on this leader to help develop and implement innovative People programs that can be scaled with this core value in mind. Working closely with the Newsela executive team, Cafiero will help drive the People strategy including talent acquisition, performance management, compensation, change management, and culture, and be a significant contributor to the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion strategies. Cafiero will report to the company’s CEO, Matthew Gross.

Holly Cafiero joins Newsela from Druva Inc., where she served as a Chief Human Resources Officer. In this role, she participated in developing company strategy and paths for growth acceleration. Cafiero was responsible for translating company goals into People vision, strategies, and subsequent global execution. Prior to this role, Cafiero worked at Cloud Technology Partners, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, as Senior Vice President (SVP) of People and Culture, Chief of Staff. Her earlier positions include SVP, Human Resources (HR) for Enernoc Inc. and Hologic Inc., and Director of HR for Vistaprint Limited. Cafiero holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Resources from Northeastern University.

Over 2.5 million teachers and 37 million students have registered with Newsela for content that’s personalized to student interests, accessible to everyone, aligned to instructional standards, and attached to activities and reporting that hold teachers accountable for instruction and students accountable for their work. With over 14,000 texts in their platform and 10 new texts published every day across 20+ genres, Newsela enables educators to go deep on any subject they choose.  Even with these impressive accomplishments, this is just scratching the surface of the opportunity in front of Newsela. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York City, Newsela is backed by investors including Kleiner Perkins, TCV, Owl Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Waycross Ventures, and others. Early this year the company announced $100 Million in Series D financing.

Frederickson Partners recruits high impact human resources leaders for innovative companies. Frederickson matches startups, tech unicorns, and the Fortune 500 with world-class full-time and project-based talent. The country’s leading People and HR executive search firm, Frederickson Partners is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices nationwide. Clients include Alphabet, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Gartner, Gilead, Intel, Pinterest, Qualtrics, Roche, ServiceNow, StockX, The Nature Conservancy, Twitter, Uber and Workday. Follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/fredericksonpartners/

Frederickson Partners, a Gallagher company is a market leader in retained executive search since 1995. As one of the top-rated HR executive search and C-suite recruiting firms, we have expertise in placing Chief People Officers, Chief Human Resources Officers, Chief Diversity Officers, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Legal Officers and many other senior leaders. We draw on a broad network of rising and established executives and leaders, and a 28-year reputation as a talent acquisition and HR Advisory provider.

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