Sasha Thackaberry Voinovich, President of SkillsWave, an education benefit company, discusses the challenges and opportunities in bridging the gap between educational institutions and the workforce. She emphasizes the need for faster adaptation in curriculum development and teaching methods to meet the evolving demands of the job market. Sasha also highlights the importance of lifelong learning and upskilling, especially in the face of rapid technological advancements. Transcript Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid. Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning. Julian: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained. Kaitlin: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in. Julian; In today's conversation, we circle back to where it all started for us. We met today's guest way back during our time at Southern New Hampshire University. Like so many people who worked at SNHU, as we call it, Sasha Thackaberry Voinovich has applied that experience to build new online learning programs and models. Kaitlin: Yes, Julian, it's great to see a familiar face on today's podcast, and we're looking forward to learning more about Sasha's latest work and her approach to leading a new enterprise. In her latest incarnation, Sasha's serving as President of SkillsWave, an education benefit company that recently spun off from D2L. SkillsWave connects employers with education partners to fill skills gaps and develop talent into a competitive advantage. Previously, Sasha held leadership roles in online learning with Pearson, Louisiana State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Cuyahoga Community College. She's on the Quality Matters board. Has published articles in numerous higher ed publications, and was a co-recipient of the 2013 MOOC award for excellence through the Open Education Consortium, Sasha holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance from the University of Akron and an MAT and PhD in higher education administration from Kent State University. Welcome to the conversation, Sasha. Sasha Thackaberry Voinovich: Thank you for having me. This is going to be fun. I always I feel like we have a SNHU alumni network, right? Julian: We really do. Kaitlin: It does feel that way. It's great to see you today, Sasha, and we're looking forward to diving into this conversation with you. Can you please expanding upon the bio that Julian just talked us through? Can you please tell us a bit more about your background and how you approach your work? Sasha: I actually, like many of us accidentally ended up in the field of ed tech. So if you go back far enough, I was a K 12 teacher, and then got sort of into curriculum development and then educational technology. I really leaned into instructional design earlier in my career. So I think I approach everything sort of from a backwards design perspective. What is the goal at the end of the day? And then how do we measure the success of that goal? And then what do we need to do to get to that goal? So that's sort of an approach that I've had for a while. I never wanted to be president of anything. I've always wanted to be in a position where I could make change, right? So I've considered myself to be sort of change maker, and it sort of led to this position. I feel like I've been preparing for this position that I didn't know I wanted for a really long time. I've always considered every place you work, you have this opportunity to grow and learn and change things and evolve things. And I think the biggest part of the last decade of my career has been learning how to be a more effective leader, which is actually a very similar skill set to being an educator, if you do it right. And the other thing I've been developing, I would say, and myself, is patience also over the last decade. Dispositionally, that's important for a leader, and it is not something that comes easily to me. Kaitlin: No, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, it's great to learn more about, you know, kind of where you started and what drives you to this point. So thank you. Julian: Yeah, no, absolutely. And so, Sasha, what are the problems that you've sought to solve at D2L, now at skills wave, and we're particularly interested in the bridging of conversations across educational institutions in the workforce. Sasha: Yep, and there is definitely a bridge that needs to be, I think, in some cases, even built and then subsequently crossed there has been well, you all, you all know this very well. This isn't a new conversation, right? We've been having this conversation for a really long time about, how do we make sure that educational institutions and training providers really ...
