Ellucian names chief people officer

Greg Giangrande joins Reston higher ed software company

Published January 13, 2021 by Sydney Lake

Reston-based higher education software company Ellucian announced Wednesday it has named Greg Giangrande as its chief people officer. 

Giangrande most recently served as a senior adviser at McKinsey & Co., where he worked with clients on enterprise transformation, employee experience, human resources, organizational health and culture, leadership development, diversity and inclusion and communications strategies.

“Ellucian is a people-first organization and we are committed to our employees who are integral to our company’s mission to lead the digital transformation of higher education in the cloud,” Ellucian President and CEO Laura Ipsen said in a statement. “As we look to build the future of higher education with our customers, Greg’s experience supporting business transformation will be invaluable.”

In his new role, Giangrande will oversee Ellucian’s employee experience, talent acquisition, diversity, equity and inclusion, learning and development and internal communications. 

Before his time with McKinsey, he served as executive vice president, chief human resources office and chief communications officer for Time Inc. He has also worked with the Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, Barrons and HarperCollins Publishers. Giangrande earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s degree in communications from New York University.

“My entire career, whether as a journalist, educator or chief people officer, has been guided by a singular purpose — to contribute to positive change in the world,” Giangrande said in a statement. “I consider it as much a calling as it is a privilege to be given this opportunity to join Ellucian and this team.”

Ellucian was founded in 1968 and provides products such as student information systems, data analytics tools and graduation-tracking platforms for more than 2,700 customers in higher education.

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