Studyportals announces new Chief Operating Officer

Eindhoven, 4th of November 2020 – Studyportals, the global study choice platform, is excited to announce that Peter Barnes joined the company as Chief Operating Officer in November 2020, forming a strong addition in the company’s strategic growth.

Peter is a CIMA qualified Accountant with 20 years of experience in digital businesses and a strong focus on execution and results.  Starting out in online recruitment, he spent 10 years with Jobsite and quickly became a key part of the senior team in the fast-growing business. His key areas of focus were setting up and leading the business intelligence function, integrating acquisitions, and guiding strategy and planning.

Subsequently, he served initially as Finance and Operations Director at The Student Room Group, growing a small business into a highly respected company by both students and universities, whilst retaining profitable growth. In the next phase, he served as Chief Operating Officer and as Managing Director, being responsible for the design, development, and delivery of The Student Room’s strategy and guiding the transition from advertising into a data-driven business in the ever-changing Education space. These have been the basis for a deep, life-long interest in the power of education.

Peter is an experienced, strategic, data-driven, and people-oriented leader with strong management skills and many years of Board level experience. He deeply understands the measures of success and the approaches to bringing teams together through shared goals, recognition, ownership, and responsibility. In his role, he is enabling Studyportals to make fact-based decisions, while ensuring a solid financial and strategic foundation.

‘Studyportals is empowering the world to choose education,’ Peter Barnes comments, ‘it’s inspiring to enable students to choose for themselves the education that best fits their needs. I’m proud to be taking the role of COO, playing a part in connecting Universities with students from around the globe, whilst growing this exciting entrepreneurial business.’

Joran van Aart, former Studyportals COO, has taken up the new role of Chief Growth Officer within the company. He adds:

‘We already serve 40 million prospective students per year from all over the world, and more than 4000 universities reach these students through our effective online recruitment platform. By continuing to grow our impact on the international education community, we will empower many more students to find their best match, and help universities to reach their recruitment objectives, and effectively build a diverse and high-quality international classroom.’