CEO Today USA Awards

109 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today USAAwards 2018 TEXAS Stephen Fredette CEO of The BARBRI Group Education has the power to transform lives and communities, to create opportunities and build careers, and to better our society as a whole. No company is more attuned to that than The BARBRI Group, a global legal education provider based in Dallas, Texas. For more than 50 years, the company has served the legal education market, initially in the United States and now around the globe. To learn more about the company, CEO Today recently spoke with Stephen Fredette, The BARBRI Group CEO and a 2018 recipient of CEO Today Magazine’s CEO USA Awards. BARBRI has been around for 50 years and seems to be continually evolving. To what do you attribute its success? I can honestly say the “not- so-secret” driver of BARBRI’s success is the team of people I’m privileged to lead. Our belief, our “why,” is that knowledge transforms everyone, everywhere. Each of us at BARBRI understands that and our role in how we bring about that transformation. Our people thrive on seeing our clients and students succeed, and they never stop innovating, exploring new sciences in learning, and leveraging technology to produce better outcomes. At the end of the day, our goal is to deliver high-quality professional instruction and certification, and help individuals around the world achieve their career aspirations. Tell us a little about BARBRI’s history. In 1967, BARBRI began delivering what was at the time, a very innovative classroom- based bar exam review course for United States law students. The BARBRI method was designed by lawyers for lawyers. That was an important differentiator as the company began to grow. Since the very beginning, we’ve had a team of curriculum designers and educators who were committed to staying at the forefront of legal education, designing programs to give our students the best possible chance of success. That is still true today as our team continues to innovate and deliver solutions to foster success for students, and now professionals, educators and institutions. Over the past several years, BARBRI has expanded into different markets. What was the driver of that trend? As a company, BARBRI has undergone a transformation from a U.S.-based bar review provider to a global player in legal education. This transformation really took off in 2011 when the company was acquired by Leeds Equity Partners, which is also when I began as CEO. Leeds’ support and partnership helped fuel seven years of investment at BARBRI, enabling us to reinvent ourselves as the industry leader and realize our vision of becoming a full spectrum legal education provider, meeting the evolving needs of learners and educators around the world. From the days of prepping students for the bar, the company has reinvented itself and today enjoys a reputation as a global leader of training, education and professional certifications. Our suite of solutions to foster practical legal education, ranges from the specialized training needs of law students to gain licensure, to professional development for other legal professionals throughout their careers and around the globe. BARBRI seems to be a hybrid of a technology and education company. How do those two work together? We’ve spent many years refining the “secret sauce” to help learners of every type succeed. We’ve found that the most effective education delivered today is accomplished by focusing on practical content, and integrating adaptive technology with advanced learning science, to create an engaging experience. Our learning strategies and products integrate in-class, online and mobile learning with proven learner technologies that guide each student through a personalized study path. The personalization is key, with content adapted to his or her unique strengths and weaknesses to create the best chance for success and a positive outcome. What’s the state of the bar review business today, and what’s BARBRI’s role in it? We’re very proud of the fact that BARBRI’s Bar Review is the leading bar prep solution on the market today, and has helped more than 1.3 million professionals pass a U.S. bar exam. In fact, largely due to our learner-centric technologies and Q Q Q Q Q