Instructure Names Two New SVPs to Accelerate Growth

Brian Cully to lead corporate development and Justin Beck to lead North America sales

SALT LAKE CITY — August 25, 2022 — Instructure, the maker of Canvas, today announced the addition of two key leaders that will have a broad influence over driving the growth of the Instructure Learning Platform. Brian Cully, a former investment banker with KeyBanc Capital Markets, has been appointed senior vice president of corporate development. In addition, Justin Beck, a former sales executive with Salesforce.org, has been named senior vice president of North America sales. Both leaders have already started at Instructure and bring significant leadership experience and industry expertise to help the company deliver on its core mission of elevating student success, amplifying the power of teaching and inspiring everyone to learn together.

As senior vice president of corporate development at Instructure, Cully will play a pivotal role in driving strategy for mergers, acquisitions and integration. Working in close partnership with the executive committee and Instructure’s board of directors, Cully will analyze, recommend and execute merger and acquisition opportunities while prioritizing the needs of our customers. Cully will report to Mitch Benson, Instructure’s chief strategy officer. He replaces Steve Workman, who retires after a successful career that includes overseeing four acquisitions for Instructure and establishing the foundational framework for managing the deal lifecycle. 

With over a decade of experience as an investment banker, Cully most recently was responsible for sourcing and executing M&A transactions that spur growth. With extensive experience spearheading technology M&A activities, he drove a variety of advisory and capital raise transactions with companies in the software, internet, human capital management and financial technology sectors. Cully earned a master’s degree in accounting and a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from the Ohio State University and is a CFA charterholder. 

As senior vice president of North America sales, Justin Beck will lead sales for both K12 and higher education, supporting over 150 teammates across sales, solution engineering, sales development and account management. He will report to Frank Maylett, Instructure’s Chief Revenue Officer. Beck replaces Chris Benwell, who recently stepped into the role of senior vice president of global sales. 

With the addition of Beck, Instructure gains close to 15 years of sales leadership experience at a variety of ed-tech companies and a nuanced understanding of the unique needs of both higher education and K-12 institutions. Beck joins Instructure following four years with Salesforce.org where he was a key part of the higher education leadership team, significantly outpacing revenue projections and growing market share. His team achieved greater than 50% year-over-year growth across all Salesforce cloud applications in the student and administrative lifecycle. A frequent contributor to edtech publications and presenter at industry conferences, Beck is an influential thought leader and respected sales partner to some of the most innovative thinkers in education today. He graduated with honors from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with a bachelor’s degree in marketing.
 
“The addition of these seasoned, accomplished leaders will add to the culture of success we’re intentionally building,” said Instructure CEO Steve Daly. “Under Brian’s leadership, we expect a sophisticated, thoughtful process for analyzing M&A opportunities, emphasizing maximizing value for our current customers. Beyond simply determining the financial viability of potential deals, he’ll prioritize the needs expressed by customers and look for ways to solve their most pressing challenges. Justin brings a proven track record of leading sales teams that consistently outperform. We’re confident in his ability to accelerate our growth and add significant value to our current customer base. As we continue to expand the market share-leading presence of Canvas, we anticipate a positive impact on the entire suite of products comprising the Instructure Learning Platform.”

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press release contains “forward-looking” statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the potential, timing and examples of any strategic alternatives. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, but are based on management’s expectations as of the date of this press release and assumptions that are inherently subject to uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements include the risk factors described in the Company’s initial public offering prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on July 23, 2021 and other documents filed with the SEC and could cause actual results to vary from expectations. All information provided in this press release is as of the date hereof and Instructure undertakes no duty to update this information except as required by law.