INESSA ROMAN
Sunnyvale,CA
Summary
Impact-driven partnerships, and communications professional with 15+ years of experience in big tech, start-up, and nonprofit organizations in the US and internationally
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
Work History
Director of Partnerships and Business Development
Sounding Board
06.2022 - 06.2023
- Created new revenue streams by developing partnership strategy from scratch and recruiting top players in corporate assessments, online learning, leadership coaching, and HR tech;
- Developed marketing assets to attract and enable partners;
- Established cross-functional workstreams and set up Partnerships instance in SFDC to track partner relationships and ROI.
Sr. Partnership Manager
Khan Academy
01.2009 - 12.2018
- Negotiated,managed, and grew strategic partnerships that generated 70% of Khan Academy's earned revenue by collaborating with major educational organizations (College Board, ETS, LSAC, NWEA) and leading tech companies on joint initiatives such as Official SAT Practice and go-to-market strategies aimed at students, teachers, and school districts;
- Spearheaded successful and on-time launches of new products (Official Praxis Core Prep and MAP Accelerator), which surpassed user target goals;
- Drove initiatives to foster diversity and inclusion as a member of the Women and Minority Gender group planning committee.
Partnerships, Principal
Coursera
12.2015 - 11.2018
- Generated revenue and accelerated user growth by strategically sourcing high-demand content from Coursera content partners in the US, Europe, and Asia;
- Fully responsible for Coursera market activation in Russia and CIS making it the fastest-growing and the largest non-English language market for Coursera in terms of revenue;
- Recruited 10+ content partners including first first industry partners in the region;
- Developed region-specific content strategy and marketing campaigns with conversions exceeding English language counterparts;
- Sourced first international online degree;
- Jointly with a strategic partner, established an international conference, which became an annual event attended by top educational leaders;
- Developed partner marketing framework for Coursera global partners;
- Created and hosted an organization-wide internal podcast, winning an internal award.
Communications and Public Affairs Manager
Google
01.2008 - 01.2014
- Led product PR activities for Russia and CIS;
- Developed regional and B2B PR work from the ground up to educate the market about online advertising and YouTube creator tools through case studies, op eds, tutorials etc;
- Organized dozens of events, interviews, media tours etc. and acted as a spokesperson to advance Google’s market share in a highly competitive landscape;
- Devised and executed social media strategy for Google in the region, grew Twitter to become the most followed corporate Twitter account in the country;
- Recruited and managed multiple contractors, e.g PR and digital agency teams on a daily basis.
Education
Bachelor's Degree - Economics, International Marketing
Plekhanov Russian Economic University
Skills
- Revenue-generating channel, strategic and content partnerships
- Strong expertise and network in edtech
- Experience in communications and social media marketing
- Relationship building and management across cultures
- Competitive Analysis
- Negotiation and contracting
- Cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder management
- Go-to-market strategy
- Proficiency in a variety of sales, partnerships, and collaboration tools (Salesforce, Hubspot, Crossbeam, Asana, Looker, Gong, etc)
Languages
English
Native or Bilingual
Spanish
Limited Working
Russian
Native or Bilingual
Timeline
Director of Partnerships and Business Development
Sounding Board
06.2022 - 06.2023
Partnerships, Principal
Coursera
12.2015 - 11.2018
Sr. Partnership Manager
Khan Academy
01.2009 - 12.2018
Communications and Public Affairs Manager
Google
01.2008 - 01.2014
Bachelor's Degree - Economics, International Marketing
Plekhanov Russian Economic University