Greg Brown has served as Udemy’s Chief Executive Officer and a member of its board of directors since March 2023. Greg joined Udemy in December 2020 as President of Udemy Business. Prior to Udemy, Greg served as the Chief Executive Officer of Reflektive, a performance, engagement and analytics solution platform, from August 2019 until December 2020. Before that, Greg was Senior Vice President of International Business at Blackhawk Network, a global payments provider, from August 2017 to August 2019; Chief Revenue Officer for Achievers Solutions, a developer of cloud-based employee engagement software, from February 2013 to August 2017; and Chief Revenue Officer for Extole, a developer of an online advocate marketing platform, from April 2011 to February 2013. Greg earned a B.S. in business administration from California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo.
Sarah Blanchard has served as Udemy’s Chief Financial Officer since April 2021. Prior to joining Udemy, Sarah served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Omada Health, a digital healthcare platform focused on sustainable lifestyle changes, from March 2019 to April 2021, and as Omada Health’s Chief Financial Officer from August 2014 to March 2019. Sarah previously served as Chief Financial Officer of CoreOS, a developer of Kubernetes and container-native software solutions, from October 2017 until CoreOS’s acquisition by Red Hat in January 2018. Before that, she served as Vice President, Finance of Silver Spring Networks, a smart grid products provider, from 2009 to 2014. Sarah received a B.A. in accounting from Michigan State University and an M.B.A from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Venu Venugopal has served as Udemy’s Chief Technology Officer since May 2019. Before joining Udemy, Venu spent over six years at Vrbo.com, a division of Expedia Group, an online travel shopping company, where he held multiple roles from December 2012 to April 2019, including Vice President of Engineering from December 2015 to April 2019. Before that, he served in various engineering and product development roles at Adobe, a computer software company, from 2005 to 2011 and, prior to its acquisition by Adobe, at Macromedia, a graphics, multimedia and web development software company, from 2000 to 2005. Venu received a B.E. in mechanical engineering from Madras University, as well as an M.S. in computer science and an M.Eng. in mechanical engineering from the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada.
Karen Fascenda has served as Udemy’s Chief People Officer since January 2023. Before joining Udemy, Karen served as Vice President, People, at Gopuff, a consumer goods and food delivery company, from June 2020 to January 2023. Karen previously spent more than four years at Comcast, a telecommunications conglomerate, where she held multiple positions, including Vice President, Human Resources, from January 2018 to June 2020. Before that, Karen held various positions at eBay, Inc. from June 2006 to January 2016. Karen received a B.S. in liberal arts from West Chester University and an M.S. in organizational dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Genefa Murphy has served as Udemy’s Chief Marketing Officer since July 2023. Prior to joining Udemy, Genefa most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer at Five9, a publicly traded provider of cloud contact center software helping the company to expand its market share and reach into International markets. Prior to Five9, she served in senior marketing roles, including Chief Marketing Officer at Micro Focus, a multi-billion-dollar software company, now part of OpenText and Hewlett Packard Enterprise where she spent 10 years in numerous consulting, product, marketing and go-to-market positions. Murphy holds a Ph.D. in User Acceptance of New Technology and a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Business IT from Swansea University, Wales, UK.
Prasad Raje has served as Udemy’s Chief Product Officer since August 2023. Prasad is a seasoned software industry veteran with 25 years of experience building enterprise SaaS companies, including founding and growing three startups. Prior to Udemy, Prasad was most recently Chief Product Officer at Outreach. Before that, he was Senior Vice President of Product at RingCentral. In 2015, Prasad founded and led product strategy for StatX, which was later acquired by Tapclicks. In 1999, he founded Instantis where he led the company through its complete startup lifecycle, including the sale to, and integration into, Oracle. Prasad holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
Stephanie Stapleton Sudbury has served as the President, Udemy Business since March 2023. Before that, Stephanie had been leading Customer Success at Udemy Business since November 2016 in roles of increasing responsibility, most recently Senior Vice President, Global Customer Success for Udemy Business. Prior to Udemy, Stephanie led Customer Success at Gild, a SaaS talent acquisition platform, from 2012 to 2016. She brings over a decade of experience managing global customer success strategies for high-growth and mission-driven HR technology companies. Stephanie received a B.A. in communication and a B.A. in global and international studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Rich Qiu has served as Udemy’s President of New Ventures since May 2022. Rich previously served as Udemy’s Senior Vice President of New Ventures from January 2021 to April 2022; Senior Vice President, Global Business Development from May 2018 to December 2020; and Udemy’s Vice President, Global Business Development from February 2014 to October 2018. Prior to joining Udemy, he was the Vice President, Business Development and Head of International at TrustArc from April 2012 to August 2014. Before TrustArc, Rich held various leadership positions at 4INFO, Fanbox, and Nuance Communications. Holds an undergraduate degree from Zhejiang University, an M.B.A. from University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Engineering from Vanderbilt University.
Senior Vice President, Operations & General Counsel
Ken Hirschman has served as Udemy’s Senior Vice President, Operations & General Counsel since 2019. Ken previously served as Udemy's Senior Vice President, Corporate Development & General Counsel from 2018 to 2019. Before joining Udemy, Ken served as VP of Corporate Development and General Counsel of Ebates, which was acquired by Rakuten, from 2011 to 2018. Prior to that, Ken held business development and legal leadership roles at software and technology firms Mindjet, Goodmail Systems, and Acxiom Digital, and spent several years as an associate in the New York and California offices of Shearman & Sterling. Ken holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from Cornell Law School.
