Providing a direct, low-risk path to higher income

Austen Allred is the co-founder and CEO of BloomTech. A native of Springville, Utah, Austen’s start-up journey began in 2017 with him living in his two-door Civic while participating in Y Combinator, a San Francisco-based seed accelerator. This experience became the foundation of BloomTech’s rapid growth. 

Before founding BloomTech, Austen was the co-founder of media platform GrassWire. He co-authored the growth hacking textbook Secret Sauce, which became a best-seller and provided him the personal seed money to build BloomTech.

Austen’s disruptive ideas on the future of education, the labor market disconnect, and the opportunity of providing opportunity at-scale have been featured in: The Harvard Business Review, The Economist, WIRED, Fast Company, TechCrunch, The New York Times, among others. Austen is fluent in Russian and currently lives in San Francisco with his wife and two kids. You can find him on Twitter @Austen.

As BloomTech’s Chief Experience Officer, Mari is focused on delivering an unmatched learning experience that yields the best possible outcomes for BloomTech learners and our hiring partners, regardless of industry. By designing the learner journey from the day someone decides to transform their career to when they’re on the job and are looking to brush up on new technology trends and tools, Mari is reinventing the way adults learn new skills.

 Mari joins BloomTech after many years in EdTech. Most recently, Mari led curriculum, instruction, and assessment teams at DataCamp. Prior to that, she spent over a decade leading learning departments and initiatives at Voxy, EF, and Rosetta Stone. She is a lifelong learner and educator and believes the true magic of learning happens at the intersection of technology and human-led instruction.

Mari has a Bachelor of Arts in Classics, with a minor in Spanish from Barnard College and an MA in Spanish Linguistics from Middlebury. An NYC transplant, she currently resides in sunny Miami with her husband and son.

As BloomTech’s COO, Zoran is focused on building the tools, the job search support, and the partnerships to help our students get hired. 

Zoran joins BloomTech with many years of experience across product, partnerships, business development, and operations.  Most recently, Zoran was at Uber for over 5 years, where he worked in business development and vehicle partnerships. Prior to Uber, Zoran spent 4 years at Facebook working on the Facebook platform and advertising APIs.  
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Zoran lives in San Francisco with his family. 

As BloomTech’s VP of Engineering, Jerry focuses on building the engineering teams and technology platforms servicing all of BloomTech’s students and staff throughout their shared educational journey. He joins BloomTech with over 20 years of industry experience, most recently at an edtech nonprofit, and before that at a lifestyle media company. Earlier in his career, he was an engineer at companies ranging from tiny startups to Google and Goldman Sachs.

Jerry lives in New York City and has been on Twitter since 2006, but has never tweeted.

As the VP of Business Operations, Bernier works cross-functionally across all business units to define key metrics and set BloomTech’s strategic goals. As part of this work, he helps conduct analysis to improve operational efficiency and give better visibility on the health of the business to the Executive team. Bernier also leads external reporting efforts for BloomTech including Outcomes and Diversity reporting.

Bernier joins BloomTech with a strategy and finance background in both the private and non-profit spaces. Most recently, he was a Manager at Bain & Company in the San Francisco office focusing primary on technology strategy. Previously, he spent time working in financial services and in the non-profit space at a philanthropy venture focused on charter school development.

Bernier earned his MBA from Yale School of Management and his BS from New York University. He lives with his fiancé in Oakland, CA. You can find him on Twitter or LinkedIn @Blauredan.

As BloomTech’s director of product, Julia will focus on building an effective and seamless learning experience for our learners. Julia has spent the majority of her career in education (Voxy, Kaplan, NYC Teaching Fellow) and has also worked at CNN. She is a New Yorker living in Massachusetts with her family.

As BloomTech’s VP of Operations, Laura is focused on creating equitable pathways for learners to join BloomTech and launch their tech careers. Laura comes to BloomTech with 15 years of experience in higher education and Ed Tech sales and operations.  She lives in Southern California with her fiancé and her golden retriever, Honey.

Jayme comes to BloomTech with over 20 years of experience, knowledge and, practice in all facets of Human Resources. She brings insights from a variety of business sectors, including IT. She is a servant leader who adds value to our mission.

As General Counsel, John is focused on ensuring BloomTech successfully navigates the legal landscape of incentive-aligned education. John is a former Naval Officer with corporate legal experience focused on solving novel legal issues. His legal background includes a judicial clerkship, prominent law firms, and even professional sports. You can find him running, watching Navy football, or exploring the Bay Area with his family.