Modern Campus Names Rick Bakewell as Chief Financial Officer
Appointment Aligned with Company’s Focus on Customer Obsession and Acceleration
TORONTO – March 30, 2022 – Modern Campus, the leading engagement platform for higher education, today announced the appointment of Rick Bakewell as chief financial officer. In his new role, Bakewell will lead the finance organization for Modern Campus and its financial activities including accounting and controllership, financial planning and analysis, tax, internal audit, and treasury. The announcement aligns with the wider focus of Modern Campus continuing its exceptional growth and welcoming five high-growth companies to its portfolio in the past twelve months.
Bakewell joins Modern Campus with a wealth of experience across more than 25 years in the technology and services industries, specializing in financial organizational excellence, operational efficiency improvements, financing and capital raising initiatives, and mergers and acquisitions. He most recently served as chief financial officer at Benefitexpress, a cloud-based benefits administration technology and human resources services provider (acquired by WEX Inc.), and prior to that, held senior finance positions at Fruition Partners (acquired by DXC Technology), NTT Data Americas, The Revere Group, and others.
“The transformation in higher education is accelerating. Our customers tell us every day that they need to know – and, most importantly, engage – the modern learner in more unique and personalized ways,” said Brian Kibby, chief executive officer at Modern Campus. “Being an exceptional partner for our customers requires intense focus, and Rick has a well-earned reputation and track record as a world-class, strategic financial leader. He’s a perfect fit for the Modern Campus team.”
“Modern Campus is on a powerful growth path driven by the outstanding Modern Campus team, its customer obsessed ethos, and aggressive platform build via internal innovation and acquisitions, said Rick Bakewell, chief financial officer. “I love being at the heart of industry transformations and that is precisely where we are in higher education today. As a lifelong learner myself, I see the incredible potential for higher education institutions, and I’m thrilled to be part of Modern Campus to see our customers deliver on that potential.”
Bakewell holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Illinois Wesleyan University and is a Certified Public Accountant.
The rapid growth of Modern Campus is due in part to welcoming five new companies in the past 12 months. The company acquired interactive campus map and virtual tour provider nuCloud in early 2021, followed by academic catalog and curriculum management provider DIGARC, and student engagement and development leader Presence. In January of this year, Modern Campus announced its acquisitions of leading higher education text-messaging provider Signal Vine and Augusoft, a leader in enrollment management for continuing education and corporate education programs.
Modern Campus partnered with Falcon Partners on this executive search.
About Modern Campus
Modern Campus is obsessed with empowering its 1,800+ higher education customers to thrive when radical transformation is required to respond to lower student enrollments and revenue, rising costs, crushing student debt, and administrative complexity.
The Modern Campus engagement platform powers solutions for non-traditional student management, web content management, catalog and curriculum management, student engagement and development, conversational text messaging, career pathways, and campus maps and virtual tours. The result: innovative institutions can create a learner-to-earner lifecycle that engages modern learners for life, while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency.
Learn how Modern Campus is leading the modern learner engagement movement at moderncampus.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Last updated: March 30, 2022