Cheryl Vedoe, the president of Apple’s PowerSchool division, is leaving the company to become the president and chief executive officer of Apex Learning, a provider of online courses and instructional materials for high schools. She’ll take the helm on Sept. 23.
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At Apple, Vedoe served as vice president of education products and marketing and president of PowerSchool, a student information system that was used by 2,000 schools nationwide. She was also a founder and the CEO of Tenth Planet, a company that specializes in classroom technology. Vedoe, who has served as the president and chief executive officer of Post Communications and also held senior management positions at Sun Microsystems, will lead Apex Learning as the company enters its fifth year of providing online instructional content for high schools. Post Communications provides clients with customized marketing programs based on software tools that blend traditional database marketing with e-mail focused on specific consumers.
Vedoe’s departure isn’t coming at the most opportune time. Apple, which once dominated the education market, has seen its market share fall in recent months, especially to Dell Computer Corp. In the first quarter of 2000, Apple and Dell were in a head-to-head battle for dominance in the U.S. education market. Dell, who at the at time had 22.6 percent of the market saw steady increases in its market share growing to 34.9 percent in the latest research numbers given to MacCentral by market research firm, International Data Corp. (IDC).
Apple has seen some recent shakeups in its education division. The most recent change saw Vedoe assume the role of president of Apple’s PowerSchool division in June. Apple brought in John Couch as vice president of education to head a combined education sales and marketing team.
For some insight into Vedoe’s thoughts on education and the Mac, see MacCentral’s past interviews with her from May 16, 2002 and June 27, 2001.
Representatives from Apple were not immediately available for comment.