PITTSBURGH, January 27, 2022 — Niche, the leading platform connecting students and families with colleges and schools, today announced two additions to its executive team: Kelly Lavin as the company’s first-ever Chief People Officer and Paul Moore as VP of Engineering.
Niche has pursued ambitious hiring goals in the past few years. 2021 saw particularly strong growth as the full-time employee count increased from 156 to 241. Lavin and Moore mark the start of another year of focus on hiring top-tier talent. In 2022, Niche aims to reach 330 full-time employees and also exceed 3,000 school and college clients.
“I’m thrilled to have Kelly and Paul at the helm of two very robust teams,” said Niche CEO and Founder, Luke Skurman. “Kelly has been a successful executive at several growth stage companies, so she will bring key expertise to our People team and the business as a whole. Paul’s deep understanding of marketplaces as well as his experience scaling engineering teams will help strengthen and grow our engineering function. I’m excited to work with each of them to push the company forward.”
Kelly Lavin brings over 20 years of experience in the People space, leading People functions and helping companies scale. Most recently, Lavin led the People function at Jobvite, a global talent acquisition software company, where she helped scale and manage change through a period of rapid growth. Lavin joined Jobvite through its acquisition of Canvas, a text-based talent acquisition software platform, where she built and led the Customer Success and People functions as part of the founding team. In her role as Chief People Officer at Niche, Lavin will shape the company’s strategies and processes for talent acquisition and retention, leadership development, performance management, and more.
“I’m incredibly excited to join Niche as their Chief People Officer during this time of remarkable growth,” said Lavin. “Niche’s mission and its impact on helping students and families find where they belong is really inspiring to me. I look forward to working closely with the leadership and People teams at Niche to advance this mission and build on the incredible work they’ve done to support a strong and inclusive workplace where employees can experience meaningful growth and connection while making an impact on people’s lives.”
Paul Moore joins Niche after an exciting 10-year run at The Knot Worldwide (formerly WeddingWire), where he led the engineering teams with a focus on their international two-sided marketplaces and client portals. Moore joined WeddingWire early on and helped grow the engineering team from four to over 50. He led the team through several transitions, including acquisition and their major merger with the XO Group to become The Knot Worldwide. Through his career, Moore discovered his passion for building strong teams, growing engineers and leaders, and leveraging technology to solve real-world problems and help people navigate major milestones in their life. As Niche’s VP of Engineering, Moore will lead the development of innovative features and functionality, oversee and improve development processes, and ensure the company’s engineering function is adhering to sustainable and scalable practices.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to be able to use technology to make people’s lives better,” said Moore. “Being faced with important life decisions, such as choosing a college or university to attend and deciding where to live, can be an overwhelming and stressful experience. Niche is tackling this head on by providing tools to help real people and their families navigate these major milestones more easily. I am proud to be a part of that team and excited to help Niche achieve the mission of helping people find where they belong.”
About Niche: Niche is where students and parents choose their school. Whether a school is already on their list or the perfect fit they haven’t yet discovered, Niche connects families to the ones that are uniquely right for them. Our enrollment marketing solutions enable our 2,000 partners to build genuine connections that nurture interest into visits, applications and enrollment. By supporting over 50 million students and parents, Niche is changing how schools and colleges connect with families and build their future classes.
Press Contact:
Natalie Tsay
Senior PR Specialist
Natalie.Tsay@niche.com