Manish Kothari, MBA ’90 is a serial entrepreneur and advisor.

Early in his career, he co-founded AlphaSmart, an edtech company where he led worldwide sales, marketing, and operations. While there, he helped grow the business from a garage startup to a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ, before shepherding its acquisition by Renaissance Learning.

After leaving AlphaSmart, he co-founded Root-1, an edtech company aiming to make learning more engaging and effective. Root-1 went on to be acquired by Edmodo, where he served as General Manager, overseeing monetization, business development, and customer success. Edmodo is now the world’s leading social learning platform for educators, students, and parents. Edmodo was acquired by NetDragon in 2018.

Manish now advises companies globally, and was instrumental in the creation of the Polsky Center’s Distinguished Entrepreneur Speaker Series.