Instructure Leadership

Steve Daly

Chief Executive Officer

Standing at Instructure’s helm is CEO, Steve Daly, who has more than 25 years of experience in technology. Steve has spent his career building businesses organically and through more than 20 acquisitions. He was the CEO at LANDESK/Ivanti for 13 years prior to coming to Instructure. Prior to that, he was SVP of Corporate Strategy at Avocent, which had acquired his startup, Soronti. He started his tech career with a 10 year stint at Intel.

Steve earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA in Strategy & Finance at Brigham Young University.

Mitch Benson

Chief Product Officer

Mitch is Instructure's chief product officer. Before assuming responsibility for all of Instructure's products, he was primarily responsible for the ongoing development of Canvas, ensuring its position as the most modern, scalable, secure, accessible, and easy-to-use learning platform available.

Prior to Instructure, Mitch served in executive roles at Microsoft, Pearson, and in the not-for-profit and public sectors in Washington state. He graduated from the University of Washington, was a fellow at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and earned an M.S. in information systems from Capella University.

Dale Bowen

Chief Financial Officer

Dale Bowen is Instructure’s chief financial officer. He has more than 20 years of experience leading finance teams, acquiring and integrating companies, and driving enterprise value. Most recently Dale served as CFO of Consilio, global leader in eDiscovery services. Dale holds a master's degree in financial economics from American University and a bachelor's degree in business management from the University of Utah.

Matt Kaminer

Chief Legal Officer

Matt Kaminer is Instructure's chief legal officer. Before joining Instructure in 2015, Matt served as General Counsel and Secretary of Collective Inc., a video and mobile advertising company. And before that (take a deep breath, this is a mouthful), he served as General Counsel and Secretary of Epocrates, Inc., General Counsel for MediMedia USA, Inc., and Assistant General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer at WebMD Health Corp. That’s a lot of counseling, generally.

Matt holds a B.S. in computer science from Pennsylvania State University and a J.D. from George Washington University.

Melissa Loble

Chief Customer Experience Officer

Melissa Loble serves as the chief customer experience officer for Instructure, leading Instructure's customer success, services, and partnership organizations and serving as the executive sponsor for some of Instructure’s most important customer-focused topics, such as data usage and privacy. Her personal mission is to drive innovation in our customer experience, which she does, in part, by enabling customers to successfully leverage Instructure’s solutions to create highly engaging and effective learning environments for their communities.

Melissa has spent 20 years in the educational technology world, working for a number of technology suppliers and educational institutions as well as teaching leadership courses on managing technology for educational change. Melissa earned her M.A. in educational policy from Teachers’ College, Columbia University, and an M.B.A. from the Columbia Business School.

Frank Maylett

Chief Revenue Officer

As chief revenue officer, Frank is responsible for building a strong, unified sales and marketing culture, overseeing sales and marketing budget development, streamlining marketing programs, and maximizing potential sales volume across regions at Instructure.

Frank brings to this role more than 20 years of experience in leading, selling, and expanding software service organizations. Prior to Instructure, he was the CEO of RizePoint and, prior to that, the executive vice president for global sales, services, and alliances at Workfront. Frank was named CEO of the Year by Utah Business magazine in 2017 and CEO of the Year by the Utah Technology Council in 2016. He also won a Stevie for Executive of the Year in the 2017 American Business Awards. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Phoenix and studied business administration and management at the University of Utah.

Jeff Weber

EVP, People & Places

Jeff Weber is Instructure’s EVP of People & Places; he's been doggedly fixated on bringing even more awesome talent to Instructure since 2013. Previously, Jeff worked at Ancestry.com—the leading online network for connecting families and the largest provider of family-history information, with 2.7 million paying subscriptions—as SVP of People and Places. That meant around 1,300 people (employees) at 10 places (offices). Not bad for a business built around dead people.

Jeff brings years of in-house HR and organizational development experience to Instructure, having worked for companies like Shell Oil Company, Amoco Oil, and Novell. Jeff holds an M.B.A. with an emphasis in organizational behavior from Brigham Young University.

Steve Townsend

SVP, Engineering

Steve Townsend is Instructure’s SVP of engineering. Before joining Instructure in 2015, Steve led several engineering teams over his 20-year career and provided consulting services for technology companies, including Intel, Novell, Veracity Solutions, and inContact. Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and an M.B.A from Brigham Young University.

Michelle Suzuki

SVP, Marketing

As the SVP of Marketing for Instructure, Michelle leads strategy and builds high-performance teams responsible for digital experience, content marketing, communications, customer marketing, branding, creative, and events. With 25 years of experience elevating brand engagement and driving revenue, she’s led worldwide marketing initiatives at several global technology companies, including EMC, Ancestry, Novell, and Landesk.

Recognized in the Top 15 Influential Women in B2B Marketing 2020, Michelle serves on the Utah Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and holds a B.A. in Communications from Brigham Young University.

Joanna Fankhauser

VP Global Revenue Operations & Enablement

Joanna serves as Instructure’s VP of Global Revenue Operations & Enablement. Responsible for optimizing revenue streams, Joanna and her team maintain a competitive advantage in the space by leveraging technology to constantly challenge and accelerate execution on go-to-market strategy. Inspired by never-ending opportunities for learning and growth, she enjoys the challenges that come with a rapidly evolving market and finds energy in helping her team optimize their resources and support their front-line players.

Prior to joining Instructure, she served as Director of Revenue Operations and Analytics for Pluralsight, and also held positions as Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer for several startups in the Greater Salt Lake City area. Joanna received her Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Statistics from Brigham Young University followed by a Master of Business Administrator in Finance and Information Systems from the University of Utah.

Will Spendlove

VP, Product Marketing

Will is Instructure's VP of Product Marketing, leading our global product marketing, demand generation, and sales enablement functions. Will's experience spans over 25 years in the technology space, serving as a Vice President of Product Marketing at Salesforce, Conga, and InsideView. He also ran Sales Enablement teams at Symantec, OpenText, and Embarcadero Technologies. After spending 20 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, Will returned to Salt Lake City to join Instructure.

Will holds a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from Brigham Young University and an M.B.A. from the University of Utah.

Chris Benwell

SVP, Canvas Sales

Leading the Americas Sales organization for Instructure, Chris is passionate about technology, lifelong learning and driving meaningful change in education. With over 27 years of executive sales leadership experience in the Public Sector market, he has held sales leadership roles as the GM for HP Public Sector and SVP of Sales at Pearson. Most recently, Chris served as SVP Americas Sales at SolarWinds.

Chris holds a BBA in Finance from Texas State University and since 2002 has served as a volunteer, advocate and Guardian for the non-profit Child Advocates.

Patricia Molenaar

SVP, EMEA

Leading Instructure’s EMEA presence, Patricia has spent more than 27 years working in senior roles at global technology, education and HR organisations, including ADP, Oracle, and Element8. An American, living in France and working across Europe for the past decade, Patricia was awarded a Top Commercial Leader 2019 in France by Action Co Business, the leading Business Magazine of French Business, in part because of her focus on diversity and inclusion in her teams.

Patricia sits on the Board of Directors for United Way France, serves as an EU Delegate for WIT, is a member of Performance Drive Consortium and the Unis Cite Philanthropy for At Risk Children and Immigrant Families across France. With a B.A in both Communications and Performing Arts from Florida Southern College, Patricia is a visiting Professor at Vilnius University in Lithuania.

CHRISTOPHER BRADMAN

GM, APAC

An experienced SaaS business leader based in Sydney, Christopher serves as the GM for our APAC region. As our regional team leader, he’s focused on helping our clients drive greater success for their institutions and businesses through the use of the Instructure platform.

With more than twenty-five years of sales and business leadership experience, Christopher has worked for several global companies, including Salesforce, Nuance and Avaya. Prior to Instructure, Christopher gained a large amount of international experience through assignments in London and Singapore and most recently led Conga’s APAC team, where he grew their businesses by over 300%.

Christopher holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture from the University of Kent in Canterbury UK.

Zyanya Bejarano

VP of Sales, LATAM

Zyanya is VP of Latin America leading our expansion in the region. One the original members of the international team at Instructure, she enjoys pioneering into new markets. An experienced global leader, she has led many global teams and has worked in SaaS companies like Zylo and Lucid. Zyanya points to working with women entrepreneurs in Peru through the Inter-American Development Bank as one of her most rewarding assignments.

A Mexico City native, Zyanya earned a dual MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management (ASU) and Tec de Monterrey.

Sarah Bassett

VP, Content

As Instructure’s VP of Content, Sarah leads strategy, development and research for Instructure’s high-impact student assessments and test item banks. She has more than 25 years as a technology business leader in strategy, marketing, sales and services roles, including 15 years in edtech, integrating high-performing teams and launching SaaS solutions that transform data-driven instruction. Prior to Instructure she was EVP of Assessments at Certica Solutions and served in leadership roles with Corechange, Ascential, Informix and Prism Solutions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in Public Relations from Boston University.

John Knotwell

GM, Bridge

John serves as the General Manager of Bridge, responsible for the people, customers, and operations of the Global Bridge business. A champion of Bridge’s mission to help people transform their organizations through connection, alignment, and growth, John brings more than 15 years of experience in cloud technologies across multiple industries and geographies.  

Prior to joining Bridge, John was CEO of Utah Technology Council, where he had a front-row seat to the innovation economy in Utah’s fast growing technology sector. He also served as Chief Revenue Officer of RizePoint, a leading quality management software in the retail, hospitality and food service industry. Before joining RizePoint, John was Vice President of Sales for Workfront, a work management platform.

John firmly believes that people matter most and that everything in business begins and ends with people. He’s passionate about building a company through transparency, growth mindset, and operational excellence. Outside work, you can find him growing things in his garden, achieving his lifelong mission to cook the best brisket, enjoying Utah’s great outdoors, and always spending time with his family.  

John holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the Jon Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University.

Daisy Bennett

Privacy Officer

As Instructure’s Privacy Officer, Daisy is passionate about privacy, education, and technology. Her focus: bridging the gap between compliance, customer, and business needs to develop strong, transparent privacy practices. Over the past 15 years, she’s had the opportunity to help a variety of tech companies achieve meaningful and effective privacy programs.

Daisy is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP-US & CIPP-E) and a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) through the International Association of Privacy Professionals. She holds a B.A. in History from the University of California Davis, a M.P.P. from the University of Utah, and a J.D. from the SJ Quinney College of Law (University of Utah).