Regent Education

Jim joined Regent as President and then was elevated to the role of Chief Executive Officer. In this role he is responsible for leading Regent's growth strategy and overseeing all aspects of solution and implementation development, client success, and business performance and planning.

Jim is a 20-year veteran of education technology and education services and has built significant relationships with both education institutions and other education partners over this time period. Previously, Jim was with Blackboard in numerous executive leadership positions including serving as the General Manager, Blackboard Analytics; the Senior Vice President, Product Management for Blackboard Learn; and the Senior Vice President of Global Services. Previously, Mr. Hermens served as the Chief Executive Officer of Educate Online, and the Vice President of Product Management and Services of Spectrum K12 School Solutions, Inc. Jim began his education industry career with Sylvan Learning / Laureate Education, where he served as both a Director, Business Development, and the Vice President, Operations of Sylvan International (Laureate) Universities.

Mr. Hermens is an Air Force veteran who served both in Desert Storm and in support of INF treaty implementation within the former Soviet Union. Mr. Hermens received an AB degree from Princeton University and an MBA degree from the Darden School, University of Virginia. He was named a Shermet Scholar for outstanding academic achievement.

Ron Dinwiddie, Chief Product Officer for Regent Education with more than 25 years of product development and product management experience within diverse industry sectors and is regarded as an expert in education technologies. 

Ron has served in a variety of executive roles in the educational space.  Directly responsible for all product development activities as well as network infrastructure and cloud technologies.  Ron has worked in areas of providing institutions with solutions to drive, support, and track students' efforts in obtaining gainful employment throughout their educational experience, providing direction and strategies on delivering the next generation platform for adaptive learning, and developed eLearning and Campus ID card products/solutions for colleges and universities.  Ron has worked for companies like Blackboard, Apollo, and Carnegie Learning. 

A native of Arizona, he earned an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a BS in computer information systems and justice studies from Arizona State University. Ron holds several professional designations and is a member of the Project Management Institute and the Product Development and Management Association.

Katie Blot is our interim Vice President, Delivery Services. 
She is responsible for furthering Regent’s client implementation and consulting initiatives as well as pushing forward our company strategy. 

With over 25 years of experience in the education industry in both the private and public sector and 16+ years in organizational leadership, Katie is passionate about helping organizations whose mission is to help people access and benefit from education. She served as the CIO of the Federal Student Aid Division at the Department of Education. Following this, Katie served in numerous executive roles at Blackboard, including the Senior Vice President of Global Education Services, and, later, Chief Strategy Officer. Following Blackboard, Katie served as the COO and Chief Strategy Officer of income-share agreement provider, and more recently has consulted with multiple higher education organizations including Kaplan Higher Education and the University of Colorado system. 

Katie has a BA in Economics from The Johns Hopkins University and lives in Bethesda, MD with her husband and three children.