Cognota adds revenue and product leaders as it scales LearnOps platform

Cognota named Beth Gantz chief revenue officer and acting COO, and James Spere chief product technology officer, as the Toronto company pushes its AI-native LearnOps platform into its next growth phase. The hires follow Cognota’s Series B, Learnexus acquisition and fresh platform investment aimed at enterprise learning and talent teams.

Why it matters: - Cognota is adding senior operators as it tries to expand the LearnOps category it helped define. - The hires are meant to strengthen revenue execution and product development at a time when the company is pushing a next-gen AI-native platform deeper into enterprise learning and talent workflows. - Cognota is also seeking to extend its lead with corporate L&D teams that need better visibility into planning, execution and business impact.

What happened: - Cognota appointed Beth Gantz as chief revenue officer and acting COO. - Cognota appointed James Spere as chief product technology officer. - The company announced the moves on Aug. 28, 2026. - Ryan Austin, Cognota’s CEO and founder, said the appointments are intended to accelerate investment in the company’s next-gen platform. - Beth Gantz said she is joining Cognota to help solve a long-standing visibility gap for learning and talent organizations. - James Spere said he is joining Cognota to build products that help corporate talent and learning leaders prove impact.

The details: - Gantz has more than 20 years of go-to-market leadership in learning and talent development. - Her prior roles included senior sales and leadership posts at THINQ Learning Solutions, Skillsoft, KnowledgeAdvisors, and Explorance. - At Explorance, Gantz served as chief sales officer, doubled the go-to-market team across sales and customer success, helped align the executive team, and supported a funding raise. - Spere brings more than two decades of product and engineering leadership in edtech and consumer learning. - His prior roles included senior product and engineering positions at D2L, MasterClass, Roadmunk and Introhive. - At D2L, Spere led core platform development for Brightspace. - At MasterClass, Spere served as head of product, B2B, and helped extend the company’s content model into enterprise and workplace learning. - Cognota described itself as the market leader in Learning Operations, or LearnOps. - The company said the new leaders will support revenue growth, operational execution and product development. - Cognota said the platform investment is focused on agentic use cases and deeper enterprise integrations. - The company recently announced Series B financing and the acquisition of Learnexus, an on-demand marketplace of L&D specialists.

Between the lines: - Cognota is signaling a shift from category creation to broader commercial scale. - The timing suggests the company wants senior leaders who can connect product, sales and operations as it moves from defining LearnOps to making it a standard enterprise function. - Gantz’s background in go-to-market scaling and Spere’s experience building large learning platforms point to a push for tighter alignment between revenue growth and product depth.

What's next: - Cognota will use the new leadership team to accelerate the next phase of platform development and enterprise adoption. - The company is likely to keep emphasizing AI-native capabilities, agentic workflows and integrations as it competes for larger learning and talent budgets. - Ryan Austin said the hires will help power LearnOps for enterprises globally.

The bottom line: - Cognota is loading up on experienced operators as it tries to turn LearnOps from a category it created into a larger enterprise software business.

More information: Cognota on LinkedIn