Udemy Expands Leadership Team With Three Key Appointments to Accelerate AI-Powered Transformation

Yahoo

9 hours ago

Former Airbnb, YouTube, and Google Executive, Sonya Saunder, Brings Strategic Growth and Operational Excellence to Accelerate Udemy's Focus on Subscription and AI as Chief of Staff and VP of Strategy & Operations
Industry Veteran Ann-Marie Darrough brings Deep Experience Executing and Scaling International Partnership Programs from IBM and Coveo to Udemy as VP of Global Partnerships
Enterprise Partnership Veteran and Former Leader at SAP, Blaine Trainor, to Build Udemy's Technology Integration Ecosystem and Focus on Driving Enterprise Platform Growth as VP of Partner Ecosystems
SAN FRANCISCO, June 24, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Udemy (Nasdaq: UDMY), a leading AI-powered skills development platform, announced the appointment of Sonya Saunder as Chief of Staff and Vice President of Strategy & Operations, Ann-Marie Darrough as Vice President of Global Partnerships and Blaine Trainor as Vice President of Partner Ecosystems. These strategic hires further strengthen Udemy's leadership team as the company accelerates its transformation into a world-class, AI-powered platform to reskill and upskill the future workforce.
"As we continue to evolve our platform and extend our global reach, we are expanding our team with experienced leaders who can drive strategic initiatives and forge valuable partnerships," said Hugo Sarrazin, President and CEO of Udemy. "Sonya, Ann-Marie and Blaine bring a wealth of experience from some of the world's most innovative companies. We look forward to their valuable contributions as we work towards scaling our AI-powered learning ecosystem and creating more value for customers worldwide."
Sonya Saunder - Chief of Staff and VP of Strategy & Operations
As Chief of Staff and VP of Strategy & Operations, Sonya Saunder will be responsible for developing and refining Udemy's corporate strategy in partnership with the executive team to drive long-term growth and profitability at scale. She will also be responsible for driving the execution of key growth initiatives while putting in place operating systems to support them.
Saunder joins Udemy from Airbnb, where she served as Director of Business Operations and Programs, directing growth strategies for high-quality supply and establishing scalable operating systems. Prior to Airbnb, Saunder held leadership positions at YouTube as Head of Strategy, Operations & Chief of Staff, where she managed strategy and operations for a 1,000+ member product organization and led annual strategy planning for major cross-team initiatives.
Her extensive experience also includes various leadership roles at Google, including Head of Search International Growth, where she built and scaled the strategy function for growth initiatives in markets like Japan and India, and Chief of Staff for Search.
Ann-Marie Darrough - VP of Global Partnerships
As VP of Global Partnerships, Ann-Marie Darrough will be responsible for leading Udemy's global partner strategy and execution, with a focus on scaling revenue through both content sales and platform fees. She will design and implement global partner strategies that align with Udemy's strategy. Darrough will lead efforts to expand Udemy's footprint in key markets across the globe and work closely with Sales, Product, Marketing, Revenue Operations, and Customer Success teams to align on go-to-market initiatives.
Darrough joins Udemy from Coveo, a cloud-based AI platform that enhances digital experiences by providing intelligent search, recommendations, and personalized content delivery, where she served as VP of Alliances & Partnerships. Darraugh was responsible for establishing partnerships with a focus on growing strategic Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and Global Systems Integrator (GSI) partnerships, technology partners and hyperscalers, while establishing partnerships with large enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. She successfully designed and executed a global partner program to scale strategic alliances, significantly increasing partner-sourced revenue growth as a percent of bookings.
Previously, Darrough was Global GTM VP, Solution Consulting, Strategy and Enablement at Bloomreach, where she scaled revenue by expanding alliances and refining go-to-market efforts. Her extensive experience also includes over 15 years at IBM, where she held various leadership positions, including Director of Offering Management, spearheading product and GTM strategies for IBM Collaboration and Commerce Solutions and developing key partnerships.
Blaine Trainor - VP of Partner Ecosystems
Blaine Trainor brings deep experience in e-commerce and enterprise technology to Udemy. In this role, Trainor will be responsible for leading Udemy's technology partnership strategy and execution. He will focus on building and scaling a robust ecosystem of technology integrations that drive platform adoption and revenue growth.
Before joining Udemy, Trainor served as VP of Partnerships at Zowie, which provides customer service solutions, primarily through its AI-powered platform for enterprises, that aims to automate complex support tasks across various channels, where he developed strategic alliance programs and drove partnership-led revenue growth. Prior to Zowie, Trainor was Global Vice President of Partnerships and Alliances at commercetools, where he successfully led a global team covering GSI, ISV and Cloud & Infrastructure partners, which transformed the team into a leading source of quality pipeline.
Trainor previously served in various senior roles at SAP, where he evolved the partnership function by closely aligning with sales teams, which ultimately led to significant partner-generated revenue growth. His extensive career also includes leadership positions at IBM, where he developed deep expertise in complex enterprise deals and sales cycles.
About Udemy
Udemy (Nasdaq: UDMY) is an AI-driven skills development platform transforming how companies and individuals across the world build the capabilities needed to thrive in a rapidly evolving workplace. By combining on-demand, multi-language content with real-time innovation, Udemy delivers personalized experiences that empower organizations to scale workforce development and help individuals build the technical, business, and soft skills most relevant to their careers. Today, thousands of companies, including Ericsson, Glassdoor, On24, The World Bank, and Volkswagen, rely on Udemy Business for its enterprise solutions to build agile, future-ready teams. Udemy is headquartered in San Francisco, with hubs across the United States, Australia, India, Ireland, Mexico and Türkiye.
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