Instructure 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 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 charter holder. 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.