Education innovator Kate Eberle Walker named ‘EdTech Company CEO of the Year’

Kate Eberle Walker, CEO of remote education platform Presence, has been named “EdTech Company CEO of the Year” in the 6th Annual EdTech Breakthrough Awards. The annual awards honor excellence and recognize innovation, hard work and success across the educational technology space.

“In education, ‘breakthrough’ ideas take years of effort and validation to deliver sustainable impact, and Presence has built its strategy over many years,” said Eberle Walker. “We believe that because of our work, more diverse learners have been served, and more clinicians have benefitted from career paths with remote work.”

Founded in 2009, Presence has built a network of clinical professionals supported by its teletherapy platform, changing how schools assess and address student special education-related and mental health needs.

The Presence network of over 2,000 clinicians serves students at more than 10,000 schools in 47 states across the country. These schools span rural, urban and virtual settings. Under Eberle Walker’s leadership since 2019, Presence has delivered over 6 million teletherapy sessions to students with diverse needs.

Eberle Walker is an advocate for representation in leadership. She is the author of the book “The Good Boss: 9 Ways Every Manager Can Support Women at Work.” Building on the lessons from her book, she has led many corporate events and training sessions to educate managers on how to create more thoughtful and inclusive work environments for the underrepresented groups on their teams.

She leads a majority-female C-suite at Presence, reflecting the commitment of Presence to represent its majority-female employee base, majority-female provider network and majority-female educator community.

“Presence’s success is a testament to Kate’s leadership, her passion, and her unwavering commitment to the field of teletherapy and to making a positive impact on the lives of students, schools, and clinicians,” said Steve Johansson, managing director at EdTech Breakthrough.

Eberle Walker’s leadership at Presence has been nationally recognized before. Last year, she received the ASU+GSV Power of Women Award, which honors female leaders who are creating a world that ensures that all people have equal access to future opportunities. Presence, too, has received many national accolades for its innovative work, most recently the Fortune Impact 20.

Prior to joining Presence in 2019, Eberle Walker was CEO of The Princeton Review and Tutor.com, and she led corporate strategy for Kaplan, Inc. She serves on several education-focused boards, including Babbel and Barnes and Noble Education.

The EdTech Breakthrough Awards is conducted by EdTech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies and solutions in the global edtech market. This year’s program attracted more than 2,500 nominations from 17 different countries around the world.

Read more: How women lead