Former McGraw-Hill Education CEO David Levin to join ASU as University Entrepreneur in Residence

David Levin has been named University Entrepreneur in Residence and will serve as a special adviser to Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow.

During 2019, Levin, the former CEO of McGraw-Hill Education, will identify and advise on opportunities for ASU to create new services, businesses and partnerships, as well as optimize current ones via his review of the higher education marketplace and ecosystem as seen through the prism of ASU’s current programs and capabilities. He will be immersing himself in understanding the entire network of current ASU services and operations, and his work will serve to support the continuing fulfillment of the promise contained in the ASU charter.

Levin currently serves as chairman of the Crumpton Group and a non-executive director of COFRA Holdings, a private Swiss company. He also acts as special adviser to a number of fast-growth and early-stage artificial intelligence and data companies.

He has spent the past 20 years leading tech and media groups through innovation, disruption, business-model evolution and geographic reorientation. As CEO of McGraw-Hill Education (2014-17), he led the development of its digital offerings and built an engineering product/services team focused on adaptive learning. Under his leadership McGraw-Hill Education exited the K-12 summative testing business and focused efforts on formative assessments and learning outcomes.

As CEO of UBM (2005-14), he built its global events and exhibitions business, launching in India, across ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and building in mainland China. Levin also led the acquisition and divestiture of more than 100 businesses worldwide. As CEO of Symbian Ltd. (2002-05), he led the development of the first smartphone operating system in a company co-owned by the major handset manufacturers, supporting the launch of the first smartphone handsets. Finally, as CEO of Psion PLC (1998-2002), he led through the tech bubble and repositioned the firm around the mobile internet, launching a series of innovative handheld computing and digital radio products.

Levin was born in Zimbabwe, educated in the U.K. at Oxford and in the U.S. at Stanford and currently lives in New York.