Leadership

Kathleen Gibson is the CEO and Founder of APL nextED, a comprehensive academic operations platform that provides workflow support and links faculty and student data to optimize teaching, advising and mentoring to increase student success.

Kathleen has worked as a lawyer, college dean, program developer, professor, and writer. She is a wife, mother, avid reader and yoga enthusiast. Kathleen has studied and written about trends in higher education for the last 20 years.

Kathleen has been described as an audacious leader who knows how to solve big problems by building executable plans and by assembling strong, talented teams. Kathleen has a contagious passion for connecting diverse people around a common vision.

Chris is a extremely versatile systems architect. He has spent the past 20 years in the web development industry developing large scale applications to meet client needs. Chris is a very creative and skilled developer, and is outstanding at working with clients and understanding requirements.

Chris excels at developing state of the art applications from scratch. He has advanced level expertise with Mac and Linux server administration, and has designed and administered multiple large scale physical and cloud data centers. He succeeds in creating platforms that are both fully scalable and fully redundant, providing cost efficient alternatives in achieving service level agreements to clients.

Kurt Knipp is a broadly experienced C-level leader skilled in delivering positive outcomes in difficult situations to enhance shareholder value. Kurt has 20+ years of line-management and advisory roles driving revenue growth and operations optimization initiatives for primarily middle-market companies. He is a strategic thinker, creative problem solver, team builder, and best-practices implementer. Kurt consistently demonstrates an entrepreneurial spirit, measured risk-taking and a natural curiosity for learning.

Katharine's sales and business development career spans 19 years with a focus on enterprise software, integrated software applications and educational technologies and products specifically for the Higher Education market. She holds extensive experience working with executive leadership teams as a strategic consultant and problem-solver, matching client initiatives with industry solutions.

Katharine's enterprise software experience includes leading her own consultancy serving in both business development and sales management roles selling innovative solutions for complex needs and workflows within institutions of Higher Education.  Katharine has held strategic sales positions for large enterprises, such as McGraw-Hill and Macmillan, and more recently, sales leadership positions for various EdTech start-up companies.

Katharine is a wife, mom, fitness enthusiast, world traveler, skilled writer and a fan of lifelong learning.

Nick Janquart is a Product Professional focusing on web-based technologies. Nick brings over ten years of experience working in Education based software to APL. He has worked in multiple roles in software development including front line client support, implementation, sales, and QA. The past five years Nick has focused his time leading product development.

When not building great products, Nick enjoys reading, biking, and traveling.

As VP of Marketing, Amy is responsible for APL nextED’s communications and marketing strategy.

Amy spent a decade in higher education developing integrated marketing and communication for a wide range of audiences. She most recently served as Senior Director of Marketing and Communications leading a creative team and vast portfolio including marketing strategy and creative execution for advancement, athletics, executive, and professional colleges. Amy led digital transformations across digital/social platforms, SEO, and brand marketing during her time at Valpo. Prior to working in higher ed, Amy worked in the television and radio industry as an editor and producer for a PBS affiliate.

Marie is an experienced partner success leader and marketing associate with a demonstrated history of working in the education technology industry. Marie advises and guides APL's customers, ensuring they implement APL nextED successfully, adopt it widely, and are continually using the platform to its fullest potential. She is skilled in Project Management, Leadership, Content Marketing, and Customer Success and Support.

With over 10 years of experience in Higher Ed administration and sales, Melissa is passionate about ensuring institutional success on campus. Most recently, she held a Strategic Sales role with Watermark and has extensive experience working with large 4-year institutions as well as higher Ed institutions of all sizes.

K.J. has over a decade of experience in Higher Education Technology, both on and off campus, The son of a University Dean and an Elementary School teacher and married to a High School teacher, K.J. and his family have dedicated their lives to education. A native Floridian, born and raised in Miami, he completed his undergraduate work at the University of Miami, earning a BBA in Finance, and continued his studies while a member of the staff at Florida Gulf Coast University, earning his MPA in Organizational Management.

K.J. has worked with various EdTech enterprises in senior sales positions, most recently Starfish and Anthology, to connect Higher Education institutions with software solutions for their unique workflows and needs.   

K.J., his wife, and two daughters, reside in Southwest Florida and regularly explore the outdoors, where you can find them at the beach, boating, playing sports, and enjoying the warm weather, and playing pickleball.

Emily Mueller is a marketing associate at APLnextED.

She holds an MFA from Washington University in St Louis and a BA from University of San Diego.
She assists in graphic design, copywriting and other creative projects for APL.

Tom is a technical lead who enjoys working with web-based applications across multiple technologies and working with dynamic teams.

Tom has participated in a variety of startups and custom software firms with client ranging from fortune 1000 to more local and family run organizations. He is used to wearing many hats in any organization and is comfortable in many roles from being an individual contributor to strategist and leader of product and process.

He is technically fluent in building Full SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) applications utilizing PHP, JS, SQL (or various forms), systems administration, dev ops workflows, RESTFul API's, and a variety cloud platforms.

In his off-time you may see him riding his bike, falling down a mountain (AKA skiing), or swimming in lakes, rivers, or seas. He is also known to frequent retro arcade establishments, craft breweries, as well as the abodes of family and friends.