Leadership Team

Our leadership team brings deep and diverse experience in education, psychometrics and business to MetaMetrics®.

Brad Baumgartner, CEO

As the new CEO of MetaMetrics, Brad Baumgartner brings an impressive background from the edtech industry. Prior to leading MetaMetrics, Brad recently held the position of CEO and President at BookNook where, under his leadership, the high-impact tutoring company expanded growth and reach to impact more students. He’s driven by a deep-seated belief that every learner has a right to high-quality education and the support they need to be successful. Brad’s entire career has been devoted to the edtech field, including K–12, higher education and corporate learning roles both domestically and internationally. Brad’s long record of success in the education space includes successfully building and scaling of companies from $20M to $130M in revenue and from 90 to 270 employees. Brad’s leadership approach centers on the concept of empowering people and supporting their personal and professional growth. An avid traveler and lifelong learner, he finds peace of mind in the outdoors—particularly on trail runs.

Alistair Van Moere, Ph.D., President

Alistair is the President of MetaMetrics where he drives innovation in assessments, and helps organizations make sense of measurement and test scores. Before joining MetaMetrics in 2017, Alistair was President of Pearson’s Knowledge Technologies group, where he managed artificial intelligence scoring services for speaking and writing. He also oversaw development and delivery of standardized assessments for tens of millions of learners. Alistair has worked as a teacher, examiner, director of studies, university lecturer, and test developer, in the US, UK, Japan, and Thailand. He has an MA in English Language Teaching, Ph.D. in Language Testing, and an MBA. He is frequently an invited speaker at conferences and has authored over 20 research publications with a focus on educational technology and language assessments.

Jillian Balow, Chief Strategy Officer

As the Chief Strategy Officer, Jillian Balow leads the company’s development and execution of strategic initiatives at MetaMetrics. She also forges collaborations between MetaMetrics and key thought leaders in education philanthropy and government.

Jillian has held key leadership positions throughout her career at both the state and national levels. Before joining MetaMetrics she served for over eight years as the Chief State School Officer in Virginia and Wyoming. In each state, she successfully led efforts to modernize educational practices and content, propel career and technical education, and improve literacy assessment and instruction. Jillian has also served as a governor’s policy advisor, a Reading First state director, and a state administrator of public subsidies including SNAP, TANF, and childcare assistance. Jillian spent the first ten years of her career as a public school teacher.

Mike Crepeau, Chief Customer Officer, The Americas

Mike is the Chief Customer Officer of the Americas. He is responsible for sales, business development, and overall customer success for MetaMetrics’ customers in North and South America. Prior to joining MetaMetrics, Mike served as Executive Vice President at Analytic Measures Inc. (AMI), responsible for business development, revenue growth, and strategic partnerships. Mike brings over 20+ years of experience in education, including roles focused on program management, client relations, business development, sales leadership, and general management. He has served in leadership roles with Pearson, Educational Testing Service, and WestEd. Mike holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s degree in English Education from New York University (NYU).

Jay Sweda, Chief Financial Officer

As the Chief Financial Officer, Jay Sweda leads MetaMetrics’ Finance and Accounting, Legal and Human Resources teams. Prior to joining MetaMetrics, Jay held senior finance roles in a number of private technology firms, including seven years in education technology. He has helped to lead organizations through M&A transactions and subsequent integrations, equity and debt raises and various transformational efforts.

Jay holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a BS in Commerce (Accounting) from the University of Virginia.

Jason Turner, Chief Operating Officer

Over the last ten years, Jason has had a variety of roles with MetaMetrics before becoming the Chief Operating Officer. Jason has worked extensively in the training and implementation of the Lexile and Quantile Frameworks in classrooms across the globe. He has also worked closely with assessment and publishing partners around the world in the implementation and development of reading and math programs. Jason has published extensively on educational topics, including measurement and performance standards, trained thousands of educators and administrators, and has presented at conferences and symposiums around North America and the UK. Prior to joining MetaMetrics, Jason worked across a variety of educational and commercial fields, including as a consultant and professional development trainer.

Malbert Smith III, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board & Co-founder

Along with A. Jackson Stenner, Malbert co-founded MetaMetrics. Malbert has worked on a number of prestigious research projects with the National Center for Education Statistics, the Gates Foundation and others to study a myriad of issues such as summer reading loss, the effectiveness of the NAEP assessments and English language learning. Malbert has taught graduate seminars at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which he received the Distinguished Alumni Award. He has also been named a research professor at UNC’s School of Education, focusing on psychological and human development studies.

Trilby Berger, Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships

As Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, Trilby oversees all domestic business development for MetaMetrics. In her most recent position as SVP, Strategic Partnerships, Trilby led MetaMetrics’ sales and partnership opportunities both domestically and internationally. Trilby launched our global effort including expansion into Korea and Japan where learning the English language are national priorities. Her work at MetaMetrics has included managing Professional Development, directing Marketing and inking many partnerships ranging from product development, licensing, publisher signings and highly visible marketing partnerships with the likes of Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Prior to joining the organization in 2003, Trilby served as Marketing and Communications Manager for All Kinds of Minds from 1998 to 2003.

Sue Steinkamp, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Research & Development

Sue oversees the research and development activities related to MetaMetrics’ Frameworks, including the design and execution of linking studies and research projects to support new tools and product offerings. Prior to joining MetaMetrics, Sue held leadership roles with Scantron, Pearson VUE, and Prometric where she led teams of assessment development and psychometric professionals responsible for all aspects of creating and maintaining valid, reliable, and high-quality examination programs, both domestically and internationally. She has more than 25 years of experience in the assessment and measurement arena. Sue holds a BA in Psychology from the College of St. Catherine and a MA and PhD in Educational Psychology, with an emphasis on Quantitative Methods in Education, from the University of Minnesota.

John Williams, Senior Vice President, Finance & Administration

John leads the finance and accounting, legal and HR functions at MetaMetrics. Before joining MetaMetrics, John worked in Deloitte’s audit practice and served in senior finance roles at various technology companies. John is currently pursuing an Executive MBA degree at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He is a licensed CPA and holds a master’s degree in accounting and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Lisa Bickel, Vice President, Customer Success

Lisa supports customer success by helping MetaMetrics partners understand and leverage Lexile and Quantile measures. She communicates with partners to ensure successful implementation of every aspect of MetaMetrics deliverables and offers sales and implementation training for Lexile and Quantile measures and related products. Joining the company in 2013, Lisa has used her extensive background in product development to direct efforts in advancing the Quantile Framework for Mathematics. That work included quantifying the demand of mathematics materials to create a path for college and career readiness. In addition, Lisa worked with mathematics publishers to add Quantile assessments and measures to their products.

Elizabeth Lattanzio, Vice President, Marketing Communications

Elizabeth Lattanzio joined MetaMetrics in 2007 and oversees our marketing and professional learning efforts. Her team shapes messaging for products and services and assists clients with their communications needs. Her team also delivers professional learning workshops and sales training. Elizabeth holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Duke University.

Ryan Leathers, Vice President, Software Engineering

Ryan has held a number of high tech senior management positions in Research Triangle Park over the past twenty years. While at MetaMetrics, he led the transition to a Cloud-Based/Software-as-a-Service organization enabling innovative new product offerings. Prior to MetaMetrics, Ryan was IT Director for American Research Institute, a pioneering start-up in the Serious Gaming space. He joined ARI from Global Knowledge where he lead the R&D team responsible for the world’s largest hands-on remote labs infrastructure supporting world-wide technical certification training.

Tracy Nicholson, Ph.D., Vice President, State Relationships

Tracy leads relationships with new state partners and government agencies for MetaMetrics. Prior to joining MetaMetrics, Tracy served as Regional Vice President at Curriculum Associates, responsible for relationships with state education agencies and legislative staff related to educational policy, statewide assessment and early literacy initiatives. She held leadership roles at Riverside, HMH and NWEA where she led sales and account management teams, as well as product management. She currently is the Chair of the Education Division for the Association of Test Publishers. Tracy holds a BSEd in Special Education from the University of Georgia, MEd/EdS from Georgia State University and a Ph.D. in School Psychology, with an emphasis in educational research and test development, from the University of Alabama. She is also a Nationally Certified School Psychologist and serves as the Chair of the Education Division for the Association of Test Publishers.

Sue Ann Towle, Vice President, Product Management

An experienced K-12 education product and marketing professional, Sue Ann leads the activities for both the product and project management teams with responsibility for MetaMetrics’ product portfolio, including the Growth Planner, the Lexile Framework for Reading’s Find a Book and Analyzer tools, as well as, the Quantile Framework for Mathematics resource library. Prior to joining MetaMetrics, Sue Ann was director of channel management at Pearson, responsible for the development, training and implementation of seven K-12 digital assessments. During her nearly 15 years at Pearson, Sue Ann also led the successful launches of the award-winning digital learning tools, WriteToLearn™ and the Pearson Test of English Language Learning (TELL™).

Jing Wei, Ph.D, Vice President, AI & Product Innovation

Jing is the Vice President for AI and Product Innovation. She is responsible for shaping MetaMetrics’ AI capabilities and impact, providing thought leadership on using AI to drive business values, and integrating innovative solutions into MetaMetrics’ existing and future products. Prior to joining MetaMetrics, Jing served as a research scientist at the Center for Applied Linguistics, leading the development and validation of a portfolio of high-stake digital assessments used by millions of students every year. Jing brings 15+ years of experience in test development, measurement and statistics, machine learning, and product development. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Shanghai International Studies University, a M.Phil. in Second Language Education from University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. in Language Testing from New York University.