Board of Directors

Board of Directors

  • Russ Mann, Thinkific Board Member

    Russ Mann
    Board Chair

    Russ Mann is currently a Senior Operating Partner at Diversis Capital, a private equity firm focused on B2B SaaS software companies. He also serves on several other boards, including Ooma (NYSE:OOMA) a publicly traded UCaaS telecom and software provider for small businesses and consumers, Flume Water, a VC-backed IOT device and data company for insurance companies, utilities and consumers, and Ignite Visibility, a PE-owned digital marketing agency focused on franchises and franchisors.   Previous roles include CEO of WineBid, the leading online global auction marketplace for vintage wines, Chairman of the Board of Demandstar, a VC-backed B2B marketplace, and Board member and CEO of Onvia (NASDAQ:ONVI), a publicly traded company providing B2G commerce intelligence and database information services later acquired by Deltek, a Roper Company  (NASDAQ:ROP).   Mr. Mann has also held senior leadership positions as contract Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at Outerwall’s (NYSE:OUTR) EcoATM kiosk network and General Manager of Gazelle.com, CMO of Nintex USA LLC, a PE-backed B2B software company, and was co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Covario, Inc., a VC-backed advertising technology and digital marketing agency later acquired by Dentsu (OTC:DNTUY), one of the largest advertising holding groups in the world. Mr. Mann earned his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and his BA from Cornell University.

  • Melanie Kalemba, Thinkific Board Member

    Melanie Kalemba
    Board Member

    Melanie Kalemba brings over 15 years of executive experience focused on business development, sales and operations across a variety of high-tech and e-commerce companies, including her most recent role as General Manager of Amazon Pay, Americas Region, where she led the go-to-market strategy, and prior roles, including Senior Vice President ("SVP") of Marketing & Sales at Miva, and SVP, Global Sales & Channel at BigCommerce, both SaaS e-commerce companies. She has served as advisor to several SaaS e-commerce start-ups. 

    Melanie holds an MBA from Indiana University and her Bachelors in Accounting from Muskingum College.

    Ms. Kalemba joined the Board of Directors on June 8, 2022 upon approval from the company’s shareholders at its 2022 Annual General Meeting.

  • Paula Boggs, Thinkific Board Member

    Paula Boggs
    Board Member

    Paula Boggs is the founder and owner of Boggs Media, LLC, which manages Ms. Boggs’ musical, public speaking, and other creative business endeavors. A former executive at the Starbucks Coffee Company, she led the global law department of Starbucks from 2002 to 2012 and was Corporate Secretary of the Starbucks Foundation. Prior to that, Ms. Boggs was a Vice President of Legal for products, operations and information technology at Dell Computer Corporation from 1997 to 2002 and also held the role of Senior Deputy General Counsel starting in June 1997. Before joining Dell, Ms. Boggs was a partner with the law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP from 1995 to 1997. Ms. Boggs is also a voting member and Pacific Northwest Chapter Governor of the Recording Academy, and serves on the Newport Festivals Foundation board, overseeing both the Newport Jazz Festival and Newport Folk Festival. She was previously on the board of Fender; a member of the Board of Premera Blue Cross and chair of its compensation and investments committees; a member of the Nominating/Trusteeship, Audit/Compliance (including six years as the chair of the audit committee) and Executive Committees of Johns Hopkins University’s board of trustees; a member of the Executive Committee of KEXP Radio, an affiliate of National Public Radio and the University of Washington; a member of the audit committee for School of Rock LLC; a member of the American Bar Association board of governors, chairing its investments committee; a member of the President’s Committee for the Arts and the Humanities from 2013 through 2017; a member of the White House Council for Community Solutions from 2010 to 2012; a member of the audit and nominating committee of the American Red Cross; and a member of the board of Sterling Financial Inc. Ms. Boggs holds a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

  • Lori Ell, Thinkific Board Member

    Lori Ell
    Board Member

    Ms. Lori Ell has been the President of Growing Ideas, a business consulting practice based in Calgary, Alberta, since 2013. She is currently a director of SNDL, where she serves on the Audit Committee and chairs the Compensation Committee.  With over 30 years of extensive executive experience, Ms. Ell has worked with multi-billion-dollar corporations, startups, and mid-market companies across various industries, including food manufacturing and technology. She previously served as Chair of the Board of AgJunction Inc., where she also held interim roles as President and CEO. Ms. Ell has been a board member of the Sawridge Group and served on two Canadian Federal Departmental Audit Committees: Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, and Indigenous Services Canada. Additionally, she has served on several other boards.  From 2004 to 2012, Ms. Ell was the President of Agristar Inc., an agri-food manufacturing company. Before that, she was the Chief Financial Officer of Quortech Solutions Ltd., a technology company.  Ms. Ell is a Certified Public Accountant, holds a Bachelor of Management degree, and has Earned the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

  • Greg Smith, Board Member

    Greg Smith BCom, LLB
    Board Member

    Greg is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Thinkific.  Greg is responsible for the overall strategic direction of the Company.

    Under Greg’s leadership, Thinkific has experienced tremendous growth, built an award-winning culture, and enabled tens of thousands of entrepreneurs to grow and scale their businesses through online learning. 

    Greg is a former securities lawyer and an online course creator. It was while working as a corporate lawyer that he launched an online course as a side project to teach other students to get into law school.

  • Jean Lavigueur, Thinkific Board Member

    Jean Lavigueur
    Board Member

    Jean Lavigueur, CPA, CA, served as Chief Financial Officer of Coveo Solutions Inc. (“Coveo”)(TSX: CVO), a cloud-based AI-powered search engine leader, from 2006 until 2023. Before Coveo, he co-founded and served as Chief Financial Officer of Taleo Corporation (“Taleo”)(NASDAQ: TLEO), a talent management solutions provider acquired by Oracle in 2012 for $1.8 billion. Taleo was one of the first companies to pioneer the Software as a Service model. Prior to Taleo, Mr. Lavigueur served as Chief Financial Officer of Baan Supply Chain Solutions, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications vendor, and of Berclain, a supply chain management solutions vendor acquired by BAAN in 1996. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lavigueur worked in the audit and tax divisions of Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) and holds a Bachelor's degree in Business from Laval University and has been a Chartered Professional Accountant since 1986.

    Mr. Lavigueur brings extensive public company board and governance experience, having served as a director and audit committee chair for several TSX and TSXV-listed technology companies, including Opsens, Wanted Technologies, iPerceptions, and Cossette. He currently serves on the boards of Vention.io, Croesus, Petal Health, and Vooban, an AI consulting firm.  Finally, Mr. Lavigueur is an external member of the investment committee of Investissement Quebec since 2023.

    Mr. Lavigueur holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Laval University and has been a Chartered Professional Accountant since 1986.