CanvasConnect: ANZ Lives On!

A senior C-Suite consultant, Harrison has had various roles at IBM, Gartner Inc. and LinkedIn before joining Instructure in 2017 to help drive and deliver the value of Canvas to the region.

Growing up on the Northern Beaches, Harrison attended Barker College before continuing his education at Sydney University and Macquarie University, where he quickly found himself interested in a wide spectrum of technology. 

At IBM, Harrison was responsible for pioneering emerging infrastructure services across banking, industrial and public sector markets. He then went on to consult C-level business executives at Gartner, helping develop and implement an effective enterprise-wide strategy that was delivered through their services.

At LinkedIn, he worked with organisations to showcase the value of being a part of, and contributing to, the world's first Economic Graph. This enabled a convergence of talent and opportunity to aid businesses in delivering on their corporate and strategic initiatives.

After learning about Instructure through his time at Gartner, Harrison could not wait to have the opportunity to bring Canvas to the market, enabling him to challenge the status quo with a truly innovative and extensible product that the education ecosystem needs.

Ryan Lufkin is the Vice President of Global Academic Strategy at Instructure, where he works to enhance the academic experience for educators and learners, worldwide. With over two decades in the edtech world, Ryan has experience with every major technology platform that institutions use to deliver education, from the LMS to the SIS, and all the systems in between. A well-known thought leader in the edtech industry, Ryan is a podcast co-host, frequent media spokesperson, and speaker at industry conferences and webinars. Ryan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations/Communications from the University of Utah and certificates in Data-Driven Marketing and Brand Management from eCornell.

Sidharth is the Vice President of International Strategy for Instructure and oversees the strategy and vision of Product for both Canvas and all of our products from a global perspective. Sidharth manages the strategic direction of the fast growing Instructure Learning Platform and works with the Global teams to ensure that as the Product is developed, that it is thought about in a global capacity. Sidharth works to identify market specific Product initiatives recognising that education can vastly vary between and inside of regions. Additionally, over the past two years he has been overseeing our Online Programs strategy and identifying how Instructure can better service the needs of our users across the globe as they transition their programs to Online and hybrid modalities, including attracting new 'non-traditional' learners.

Sidharth has been actively working in Education Technology for over 10 years and is dedicated to providing avenues for institutions and learners to have access to the best tools and resources to enhance education

Ruth Thornton is the Global Product Manager for the Asia Pacific region at Instructure and has moved to this role following 3 years supporting Canvas customers across our vocational education, K12 and Higher Education sectors as a Senior Customer Success Manager. During this time, Ruth worked in strategic partnership with numerous VET organisations across ANZ to ensure successful adoption and enhanced utilisation of the LMS specific to each unique requirement and use case.

Prior to her time at Instructure, Ruth was responsible for program coordination and online learning for a VET organisation based in Melbourne, which also included teaching from and administration of the Canvas LMS. Ruth is eager to be a part of improving access to educational opportunities for all as well as helping educators make meaningful learnings experiences.

Edward leads the EMEA, Asia-Pacific and global channel marketing teams for Instructure, a global software company in the education industry.

Prior to joining Instructure, Edward was Chief Marketing Officer at HealthEngine, an Australian technology start up in the healthcare sector.

Edward spent 6 years at LinkedIn, including 5 years in Singapore leading marketing teams for LinkedIn Sales Solutions and Marketing Solutions across the Asia-Pacific region including China and Japan. During this time he was elected as Chairman of the Social Media Committee for the Internet Advertising Bureau in South East Asia for 2 consecutive years.

He spent eight years in marketing at Fairfax Media - a leading Australian publisher, where he worked in a number of roles across newspapers, magazines and digital media. 

Edward has also held roles in media buying and sales over his 20-year career in marketing and advertising.

Greg has worked as a Solutions Engineer at Instructure for 5 years and worked with many schools, training organisations and higher educations institutions throughout his tenure. Greg is passionate about helping demonstrate how Instructure’s platform can integrate into a customers learning environment and improve the learning experience for students and teachers. Prior to working at Instructure, Greg managed Online Learning Environments for a university in Adelaide.