CodePath, the nonprofit dedicated to reprogramming higher education to create the most diverse generation of engineers, CTOs, and founders, today announced that Chris Coleman has joined the organization as its first Chief Product Officer (CPO). In this role, Chris will accelerate CodePath’s plans of scaling its reach and personalized learning capabilities by leveraging new technologies including generative AI.
As CPO, Chris will lead CodePath’s product engineering delivery team whose work allows universities to offer state-of-the-art, industry-vetted computer science courses and career support, greatly improving the technical readiness and job outcomes of graduating students while building new reputations for schools.
“I am thrilled to welcome Chris to the CodePath team,” said Michael Ellison, co-founder and CEO of CodePath. “Chris will play an integral role owning the program and product portfolio across the end-to-end student experience and revenue products. As CodePath scales to soon reach 100,000 students per year, Chris’ decades of experience in software engineering, education, and workforce development will be integral to the organization as we reshape the tech workforce and develop the tech leaders of tomorrow.”
Chris brings a wealth of industry knowledge to CodePath, dedicating the majority of his 19-year career to advancing educational technologies, with a focus on democratizing and accelerating learning from K-12 through higher education. Before joining CodePath, Chris served as president of Woz U, the edtech enterprise founded by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers. At Woz U, Chris led the creation of the award-winning Exeter Learning Management System and designed an innovative curriculum model that provided personalized technical training for Fortune 100 companies and major universities. He established Registered Apprenticeship programs across seven technology-based occupations and was a recipient of the California Apprenticeship Initiative Grant. Earlier in his career, Chris also served as vice president at MindPlay, where he led development of Virtual Reading Coach, an award-winning K-12 literacy platform and pioneer of adaptive learning.
“There is no organization doing more to address the early talent needed in the tech sector than CodePath,” said Chris Coleman, Chief Product Officer of CodePath. “I am excited to join a team with a fierce devotion to quality and student impact, working everyday to open up opportunities and prepare these students for technical excellence. Building upon the organization’s work of the past seven years, I am eager to continue to deliver high-quality programs and products to our students and partners as CodePath enters this next scaling phase.”
Over the past year, CodePath has greatly expanded product engineering, scaling its learning management system (LMS) to reach 40,000 active users across students, educators, and administrators while also launching half a dozen new product improvements to enhance student and employer experiences.
Chris joins a robust engineering leadership group at CodePath, which includes co-founder and CTO, Nathan Esquenazi, co-founder and Chief Learning Officer (CLO), Tim Lee, and VP of Engineering, Zack Parker. Tim and Nathan, along with co-founder and CEO, Michael Ellison, redesigned global engineer onboarding programs for Facebook, AirBnB, and more, before launching CodePath. Nathan is a prolific open-source contributor with projects used by millions of developers. Zack was the first engineer hired at Yammer, and served as senior director of engineering where he built high-performing teams until Yammer was acquired by Microsoft. Each have been founders of early-stage start-ups prior to CodePath, with successful exits across multiple ventures.
Looking ahead, Chris and the engineering leadership at CodePath will lead new implementations of AI solutions that personalize learning at scale and improve mastery of skills, developing top-tier talent at a time when tech companies battle to hire new skills-ready engineers amid the AI boom.
About CodePath
CodePath is reprogramming higher education to create the most diverse generation of engineers, CTOs, and founders. We deliver industry-vetted courses and career support centered on the needs of Black, Latino/a, Indigenous, and low-income students. Our students train with senior engineers, intern at top companies, and rise together to become the tech leaders of tomorrow.
With over 20,000 students and alumni from 600 colleges now working at 2,000 companies, we are reshaping the tech workforce and the industries of the future. CodePath is supported by Andreessen Horowitz, Blue Meridian Partners, Comcast, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Knight Foundation, Meta, New Profit Foundation, and Salesforce, among others. In 2024, CodePath was recognized as one of the Most Innovative Companies in Education by Fast Company. To learn more, visit www.codepath.org.
