Dan Harris’s (Chief Revenue Officer, Career Certified) initial foray into management began during his college years as the warehouse manager for the campus. In this role, he first encountered UPS through a detailed shipping integration project aimed at streamlining textbook delivery to students. Impressed by his capabilities, UPS recruited him, and there he cultivated his sales career, gaining significant operational, leadership, and sales acumen.
From Campus Warehouse to EdTech Leadership
In 2016, as Dan Harris approached the completion of his Masters in Organizational Leadership, Mr. Harris discovered The CE Shop. This small yet expanding technology education company captured his attention due to its strong core values and customer-centric approach. He joined The CE Shop as a sales manager, tasked with scaling their B2B channels. The company experienced rapid growth, fueled by a robust product, effective marketing, and a strong sales team. Consequently, Mr. Harris’s responsibilities and influence expanded, leading to promotions from Sales Manager to Director, Vice President, and ultimately Chief Operating Officer as the company prepared for recapitalization to support further growth.
The formation of Career Certified presented the next stage in his career. This new entity was established to facilitate accelerated growth through both organic initiatives and mergers and acquisitions. This evolution provided Mr. Harris with the opportunity to serve as Chief Revenue Officer and President.
Harris’s Vision at Career Certified
Dan Harris collaborates with a highly talented and exceptional team, whose diverse skills and perspectives challenge conventional thinking, fostering a high-energy environment brimming with opportunity. This makes it easy for him to approach each day with enthusiasm and drive.
In Mr. Harris’s view, success is fundamentally straightforward, ultimately hinging on customer satisfaction, both internal and external. His focus lies in developing a team that is highly motivated and deeply committed to understanding and resolving the challenges faced by their customers. This involves collaboratively creating effective solutions and ensuring their seamless delivery.
Journey at the Heart of Financial Expansion
Dan Harris reflects on his time with the company as “quite a ride” and notes the enjoyment of being central to its success. He also acknowledges the company’s ability to weather macroeconomic challenges through strategic diversification during his tenure. He recalls that just five years prior, the company’s valuation was around $30 million, and by the end of the current year, it is projected to surpass $100 million in targets. This significant growth has been accompanied by a tripling of EBITDA over the recent years, attributed to a focused and consistent go-to-market (GTM) strategy.
Embracing Transformation
In the initial stages of his involvement, Dan Harris was directly engaged in field operations, which allowed him to identify key B2B growth opportunities. He spearheaded these initiatives from the ground level, supported by a strong team that contributed to immediate success, setting them apart from the competition at the time. Building on this foundation, Mr. Harris and his team identified avenues to serve a broader range of markets by applying their established best practices from the real estate sector to other career paths.
The preceding years have necessitated a significant embrace of transformation under Mr. Dan Harris’s leadership. This included the transition to a fully virtual company following the COVID-19 pandemic, a strategic shift towards incorporating mergers and acquisitions alongside organic growth, and the scaling of the team by nearly 400%. Throughout this period, they achieved considerable success by amplifying their digital marketing presence, balanced with a highly disciplined and focused B2B sales strategy, which enabled them to rapidly expand their customer base.
The Philosophy of Career Certified
Career Certified operates with the central aim of making purpose attainable for everyone, regardless of their background or origin. This philosophy drives the company’s approach to professional education, ensuring inclusivity and tailoring its offerings to meet the specific needs of each industry. The organization is committed to providing a rapid pathway to success for individuals while simultaneously enhancing the reputation of those careers and fostering a sense of pride among career seekers.
Beyond Execution
A core tenet of Career Certified’s operational philosophy is the critical skill of listening, a principle the organization emphasizes daily. This involves attentively observing market trends, actively engaging with the team’s insights, and carefully considering customer feedback. Career Certified believes that innovation often arises from unexpected sources, which would remain undiscovered without a conscious effort to listen. The company operates under the understanding that attempting to solve all challenges in isolation is ineffective. Instead, it prioritizes collaborative problem-solving, recognizing the immense value and rewarding outcomes of incorporating diverse perspectives.
From this foundation of listening, Career Certified focuses on creating a robust roadmap, maintaining consistent communication across all stakeholders, and diligently driving progress. The principles outlined in the business book “Good to Great” serve as a constant reference, with the organization committed to consistently feeding and maintaining its flywheel through a disciplined focus on its strategic plan.
Financial Performance
- 3x EBITDA Growth in just 3 years
- Sustained profitability through strategic expansion
Expanded Career Path Offerings
- From 1 to 11+ career paths in 4 years
- Continued growth anticipated in 2025 and beyond
Customer Trust & Satisfaction
- TrustPilot rating jumped from 3.4 → 4.5+ in months
- Strong focus on user experience and learner outcomes
User Engagement & Reach
- 500,000+ course enrollments per year
- Serving a broad and diverse learner base
Explosive B2B Growth
- 4,000+ B2B partners
- 1600% growth in partner network since 2016
Marketing Efficiency
- B2C LTV : CAC = 4:1
- Healthy and scalable growth model
- +10% increase in digital ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) in the last year
Team Expansion
- 38% employee growth over the last 5 years
- Investing in talent to drive innovation and scale
Building the Future of Learning
Career Certified maintains an ongoing focus on identifying strategic mergers and acquisitions that not only contribute significant revenue but also align with the company’s established culture and ambitious growth plan, including its technological infrastructure. Furthermore, the organization is currently undergoing a period of substantial expansion, with plans to introduce several new career paths to its offerings in the current and following year.
This expansion necessitates dedicated efforts from the curriculum, product, and compliance teams, as well as focused strategies from the sales and marketing teams around the launch of these new programs, promising an exciting period of accelerated revenue impact. Career Certified is uniquely positioned to strategically evaluate opportunities to build, partner, buy, or acquire resources and capabilities that will further expand both existing and new learning journeys for its users.
Response to Changing Career Philosophies
Career Certified recognizes the significant and rapid changes occurring in the overall approach to career development and the evolving philosophies around success, particularly as they relate to rewarding work, work-life balance, and investment in education. The company observes a substantial shift towards trades, licenses, and other career opportunities that lie outside the traditional degree pathways that have dominated the professional landscape for several decades. Focused, skill-based development and careers that offer greater ownership and growth potential are increasingly surpassing traditional educational routes in popularity and perceived value.
Career Certified anticipates that technology, supported by advancements in AI, automation, and broader innovation, will continue to enhance the accessibility of these alternative educational avenues while providing a stronger net return for a growing number of professionals, especially as AI evolves into a more sophisticated study tool and a valuable resource for customer support.
Cultivating Ownership and Accountability
Dan Harris believes Career Certified’s success starts with a deep commitment to its mission, vision, and core values, which shape team culture and engagement. He views success as a result of consistent daily effort, focus, and energy, celebrating wins of all sizes while closely tracking both leading and lagging performance indicators. Dan upholds high standards of excellence and accountability across the company and emphasizes the importance of “controlling the controllables”—focusing on individual actions and mindset to drive ownership, intrapreneurship, and long-term performance.
Data-Driven Education
Technology has long been the driving force behind Career Certified’s online, asynchronous delivery model. The organization understands that no single tool guarantees a company’s success, and that the effectiveness of any technology is contingent upon the supporting processes and users. Instead, Career Certified relies on a cohesive integration of various technological solutions. The company initially built much of its technology in-house, complemented by effective project management tools. Over time, Career Certified has upgraded its accounting systems, and places significant importance on robust data analytics and tracking capabilities.
Journey through Growth and Change
Career Certified has navigated significant change, balancing mergers and acquisitions with organic growth, managing a multi-channel market strategy, and supporting a diverse customer base. The company has also adapted to a remote workforce, scaling teams and evolving its culture to maintain performance. As growth continues, a key focus is developing the next generation of leaders and expanding organizational ownership. While transitioning responsibilities is complex and trust-dependent, it’s seen as essential for sustaining long-term scalability.
Integrating Work and Personal Values
Dan Harris advocates taking deliberate time to identify personal values in both one’s professional and personal spheres. He suggests creating a tangible inventory for each of these areas, clearly defining the non-negotiable elements within them. In the context of work, Dan emphasizes the importance of defining a personal leadership philosophy and regularly reflecting on it. This self-assessment helps ensure alignment with one’s intended leadership approach and allows for course correction when deviations occur. He believes that when one operates in accordance with their leadership philosophy, work should be both rewarding and enjoyable. Regarding personal life,
Dan Harris advises planning personal time with the same level of focus and commitment applied to professional schedules. This intentional scheduling helps prevent personal time from merely becoming a period of recovery from work demands, transforming it instead into something anticipated, refreshing, and conducive to maintaining drive and enthusiasm.
The Strategic Advantage of Patience
Patience is a quality that does not come naturally to Dan Harris, and early in his sales career, this impatience often led to significant stress and volatile periods of highs and lows. He credits an early sales manager with coaching him on the importance of maintaining a more balanced demeanor and allowing time and space for effective problem-solving. Recognizing his inherent tendency to act with urgency, Dan consciously considers the value of patience when making decisions and evaluating outcomes.
A key aspect of cultivating this patience involves building and actively utilizing a network of trusted individuals whom he can consult to discuss challenges and opportunities, seeking diverse perspectives before taking action. This practice alone has notably reduced his stress levels and significantly improved the quality of his decision-making process.
A Word to the Wise
To the Leaders That Don’t Quite Know They’re Leaders Yet,
The truth is, the path to leadership took me a bit to understand. It’s not about walking in the room with every single answer tucked up your sleeve. Nope. It’s about something way more grounded: humility, really hearing what people are saying, and getting crystal clear on your own leadership style.
Early on, I fell into that trap. Though I had to be the guru, the one with all the solutions. But guess what? You burn out fast trying to be a walking encyclopedia. What I learned, and it’s been a game-changer, is that the real magic happens when you empower others. Your job becomes more about making sure everyone’s on the same page, pointing towards the big picture, and creating a culture where people feel supported and can actually do their best work.
Think of it less like calling every single shot and more like guiding the overall vision. You set the direction, and your amazing teams? They’re the ones making the day-to-day plays. Your role is to make sure they have what they need, they’re aligned, and they’re not bumping into each other.
So, as you step into those leadership shoes, remember this: your ears are powerful tools. Use them. Listen actively – to your teams, to your peers, to the market. And take some time, right now even, to think about the kind of leader you want to be. What values will guide you? How will you inspire those around you?
Trust me, understanding that early on will set you up for a much more impactful and, dare I say, enjoyable journey.
Dan Harris,
Chief Revenue Officer (CRO),
Career Certified
