Executive Team

Laura K. Ipsen is president and chief executive officer of Ellucian, the leading technology solutions provider for more than 2,900 higher education institutions in more than 50 countries. She has more than 25 years of experience as a technology executive in Silicon Valley, driving transformation in the public and private sectors and spurring adoption of comprehensive solutions in high-growth industries at Oracle Corporation, Microsoft and Cisco Systems. Earlier in her career, Ipsen also held leadership roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Acer America, and Hitachi Data Systems.

Recently named one of the Top 100 Influencers in the state of EdTech 2022-2023 Report by EdTech Digest, Ipsen was also recognized in 2021 by Virginia Business as part of the Virginia 500: Power List and the Women Leadership List. In addition, Ipsen was presented a Power of Women Award by ASU+GSV in 2021 and was awarded a 2022 Gold Globee Award as Female CEO of the Year in the Cloud Computing, SaaS, or Internet category.

Currently, Ipsen serves as a member of the Supervisory Board of Daimler Truck Holding AG. She is also a member of the board and the executive committee of the Business-Higher Ed Forum (BHEF) based in Washington, D.C., a member of the Fast Company Impact Council, Fortune CEO Initiative, and WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD). In addition, Ipsen is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum, Silicon Valley Chapter and is an associate member of the Board of Trustees of Lafayette College.

Ipsen is a graduate of the University of Virginia and studied Arabic at Yarmouk University in Jordan.

Martin is Chief of Staff to the President and CEO of Ellucian, focused on supporting the senior leadership team in developing and executing the organization's strategy and key initiatives.

Martin has a career that spans roles in the United States, United Kingdom, and Caribbean focused on business strategy, transformation, and various aspects of product development and go-to market. He uses his breadth of perspectives to be effective in a range of business domains, build and lead diverse teams, and drive business impact.

He joins Ellucian from Capital One where he led product teams focused on customer experience across web, mobile, and customer service agents. Prior roles include being Director of Digital Strategy & Operations for Digicel Group and Head of Transformation for BT Plc. In these roles, he was responsible for developing and executing technology-driven strategy and transformation—including the launch of 5G in the UK and a series of service and entertainment products across the Caribbean and the Pacific. Martin has also had roles at Dean & Company, a strategy consultancy, and the International Monetary Fund.

Martin has an MBA from the University of Cambridge, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A. from the Queensland University of Technology.

As senior vice president and chief legal officer for Ellucian, Jim Bennett is responsible for managing the legal affairs of the company and in so doing, works closely with public and private universities around the world.

Jim began his career with Ellucian as deputy general counsel for Systems & Computer Technology Corporation (SCT), a publicly-held company that serviced the information technology needs of entities in the higher education, local government, utilities, and process manufacturing marketplaces. When SCT was acquired by SunGard in 2005, he joined the corporate legal team. He served as general counsel for SunGard’s local government and K-12 divisions, and then became general counsel of SunGard Higher Education. In 2012, Hellman & Friedman LLC acquired SunGard Higher Education and combined it with Datatel to create Ellucian, bringing Jim and the rest of his legal team to the new company.

Jim was recognized by the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2015, when he received their Corporate Counsel Award, and in 2016, Ellucian’s legal department was cited as “Pennsylvania’s Best Legal Department—General Excellence” by The Legal Intelligencer.

Jim is a graduate of Holy Family University, where he received his BA in English, with a secondary teaching certificate. He earned his JD from Villanova University School of Law.

As executive vice president and chief financial officer, Harshan Bhangdia is responsible for leading Ellucian’s finance operations, including key financial and strategic initiatives, financial reporting, and technical accounting.

Prior to joining Ellucian, Harshan served as acting chief financial officer, vice president, and controller, as well as senior adviser to the chief financial officer of QuintilesIMS (formerly IMS Health), a publicly-traded, Fortune 1,000, multi-national information services company. He also served as a financial leader at Juno Online Services, Inc., a publicly-traded, high-growth, internet-based technology company that at one time had three million active users.

Harshan began his career with Anchin, Block & Anchin and later moved to PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Wagner College in Staten Island, New York, and an MBA from Pace University’s Lubin School of Business in New York City. He has been a certified public accountant since 1994.

As chief strategy and corporate development officer, Jeff Dinski is responsible for driving Ellucian’s growth strategy with a focus on market expansion, strategy and insights, corporate development, competitive intelligence, and analyst relations.

He brings deep knowledge and expertise in market analysis and strategy to this newly created role. With more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and operator in the education technology and media sectors, Jeff has delivered extraordinary results for both large conglomerates and startups.

Most recently, Jeff was a partner at Tyton Partners, where he advised a broad range of education companies on growth and market positioning strategies, as well as private equity fund sponsors on acquisitions, due diligence, and portfolio company performance.

Prior to Tyton, Jeff was Vice President of Business Development and General Manager of Consumer Services at Parchment, a digital credential company. He has also held a variety of leadership roles at Comcast Interactive Media, CBS Interactive, and ESPN.

Jeff holds a B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

As chief people and communications officer, Greg Giangrande leads all aspects of Ellucian’s global people organization, including employee experience, HR business partners, talent acquisition, total rewards, diversity, equity and inclusion, learning and development, and communications.

Greg has deep experience as a transformative human resources and communications leader. He comes to Ellucian most recently from McKinsey & Company where he served as a senior advisor working with clients across sectors and geographies on enterprise transformation, employee experience, human resources, organizational health and culture, leadership development, diversity and inclusion, and communications strategies.

Prior to McKinsey, Greg served as executive vice president, chief human resources officer and chief communications officer for Time Inc. where he oversaw human resources and communications for 10,000 employees globally. Previously, he held leadership roles in human resources and communications at News Corporation including, Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, Barrons, and HarperCollins Publishers. Greg is a career advice columnist for the NY Post, the fourth largest daily circulation newspaper in the U.S., and he is an adjunct faculty member of New York University (NYU).

Greg holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Master of Arts in Communications from New York University.

John Gurski is the Chief Revenue Officer of Ellucian, where he leads global sales, marketing, solutions consulting and revenue operations.

John’s expertise includes sales and marketing leadership, value creation, strategic planning, digital transformation, and customer success. Throughout his career, John has been passionate about and committed to building dynamic cultures that fuel innovation and growth to foster diverse, inclusive, and equitable environments.

Before joining Ellucian, John was President and Chief Revenue Officer of Integrate, a marketing demand acceleration platform, where he led all go-to-market functions. Prior to this role, John was Chief Sales Officer at PointClickCare, a healthcare innovator and cloud-based software provider for the post-acute care market. John spent most of his career at SAP, where he held various leadership roles over 20 years.

John holds a BS degree from Penn State University and an MBA from The George Washington University. Gurski also studied at the London School of Economics.

As Chief Transformation Officer, Melissa King is responsible for guiding Ellucian’s strategic plans to scale the company’s business, accelerate growth and solidify the foundation for ongoing innovation. In this newly created role, Melissa will broaden the value Ellucian brings its customers by providing a faster and simpler path to the cloud and SaaS, expanding the global marketplace, and broadening the company’s capabilities through strategic partnerships and M&A activities.

Over her more than 20 years of service at the company, she has provided leadership to teams focused on new product development and the introduction of emerging technologies and methodologies. Her specialties include building a global workforce, business transformation, go-to-market strategy, acquisition integration, revenue acceleration, opportunity analysis, and change management.

Before stepping into this role, Melissa was senior vice president of Revenue Strategy and Operations, where she led Ellucian’s field teams with a focus on the processes and methodologies that enable industry-leading, global product strategy and delivery. Previously, Melissa served as vice president of R&D within Ellucian, where she led global product development teams through the delivery of centralized common functions and services, including engineering centers of excellence, test engineering, and user experience design.

Melissa is also engaged in community and industry programs that promote women in technology and STEM education. Melissa studied at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and holds a B.B.A. with concentrations in applied information systems and business.

As Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Mike Wulff leads Ellucian’s engineering teams and drives growth initiatives focused on digital transformation and cloud adoption.

Mike has more than 20 years of experience in the software industry, architecting and developing complex industry-focused solutions. Previously Mike served as a vice president of R&D at Ellucian, leading the teams responsible for the development of Ellucian’s ERP and SIS solutions.

A strong proponent of agile development practices, Mike leverages his foundational experience as a developer and technology leader to drive successful product releases from inception through deployment. His recent development efforts have focused on building native SaaS applications inclusive of the full DevOps pipeline and toolchain.

Mike holds a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech.