Meet the Team

When your company envisions a brighter future, you need bright lights to lead the way. The leadership team at Top Hat, like all of our employees, is driven by our mission to use innovative thinking to make higher education more engaging, affordable, and equitable—each day they guide us closer to making that a reality for every student.

Our Leadership Team

Maggie Leen

Chief Executive Officer

As CEO, Maggie is responsible for our corporate and go-to-market strategy, leading Top Hat through the next chapter of its growth. She is an accomplished executive with over 20 years of leadership experience in higher education, including sales, business development, operations, and marketing. Prior to joining Top Hat, Maggie held a variety of progressively senior sales and marketing roles at companies such as Adtalem and Pearson.

Les Cullen

Chief Financial Officer

As CFO, Les leads Top Hat’s financial and operational functions. He brings deep experience and a proven track record in EdTech, having led financial and revenue operations, data and systems, legal, as well as multiple acquisitions and fundraising rounds.

Larry Indovina

Chief Operating Officer

As COO, Larry is responsible for driving operational excellence at Top Hat and championing a high-performance mindset across the organization. With more than two decades of executive experience at high-growth companies, Larry has led global teams, business transformation initiatives, and supported 10+ mergers and acquisitions. Having joined us as Chief People officer, Larry has led the creation of a world-class workplace culture.

Hong Bui

Chief Product Officer

A senior executive with 20 years of experience developing and launching products for companies like Amazon, Expedia and Apple, Hong is responsible for driving Top Hat’s product innovation. His mission is to increase value to students and academic institutions, while enhancing our competitive positioning and business growth.

Donna Battista

Managing Director,
Learning Solutions

Donna brings 20 years of experience leading content and product development in higher education to Top Hat. She is responsible for the strategy and development of our growing catalog of high-quality, interactive digital learning experiences, custom content delivery and content services.

Bradley Cohen

Chief Academic Officer

Bradley provides leadership and advocacy within the higher education community as well as for Top Hat’s product innovation, digital publishing, and institutional engagement strategy. Prior to joining Top Hat, he led improvements in student outcomes and executed ambitious growth strategies at Ohio University.

Our Board of Directors

Bill Okun

Executive Chairman

Bill has spent his career working with and for enterprise information, technology, and business services companies at varying stages of growth. He most recently served as CEO of Penn Foster Group, a leading provider of online career training and education solutions. He has also served as President of McGraw-Hill Higher Education and Executive Vice President of Capital IQ, where he joined the company from its board and helped lead it to its acquisition.

Shawn Abbott

Shawn co-founded Inovia Capital in 2007 alongside Chris Arsenault, after spending more than 25 years as a successful founder and executive. He serves as a director on the boards of several Inovia portfolio companies, and is an active coach and mentor to several entrepreneurs in the tech ecosystem.

Kristen Hamilton

Kristen is a technology entrepreneur and CEO with multiple exits and is currently SVP Strategic Partnerships at Guild Education, a unicorn in the education-to-employment space. She is currently a board director of growth stage companies Top Hat, Aduro, and Strivr, and is chair of the board of Directors’ Cup Invitational Ski Classic.

Justin LaFayette

Justin is a Lead Investor at Georgian, a fintech company he co-founded in 2008. There, he oversees the firm’s investments in leading technology companies in the U.S. and Canada. Prior to founding Georgian, Justin led IBM’s analytics acquisition strategy, having joined IBM through the acquisition of DWL, a firm he co-founded in 2005.

Nicole Taylor

Nicole has dedicated her life to education and improving young people’s lives. This includes her current role as President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and having served as Deputy Vice President and Dean of Students at Arizona State University. She’s also held leadership roles at Thrive Foundation for Youth, College Track and the East Bay Community Foundation where she raised millions for the African American Male Achievement Initiative, a program credited with significantly increasing graduation rates.

Join our team

Do you believe in the transformative power of higher education? Want to be a part of shaping its future?

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The Top Hat Newsroom

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