Speaker > Biography

Eugene Wade, WG'99

Chairman, CEO & Co-founder
Platform Learning

Eugene Wade is the Chairman, CEO & Co-founder of Platform Learning, a provider of tutorial services to low-income students attending failing public schools throughout the United States. Since launching in March 2003, Platform has tutored over 60,000 students.

Prior to co-founding Platform, Mr. Wade was Executive Vice President for Development at Edison Schools where he oversaw Edison’s successful effort to secure a contract to manage 20 schools and 13,000 students in the School District of Philadelphia.

Before joining Edison, Mr. Wade was the Chairman, CEO & Co-founder of LearnNow, Inc, a school management company that operated charter and public schools throughout the United States. Over a 22-month period, Mr. Wade’s team grew LearnNow from a startup to a company serving more than 6,000 students attending 10 schools in four states. In July 2001, LearnNow was sold to Edison in a transaction valued at over $38 million.

Prior to LearnNow, Mr. Wade was a corporate and bankruptcy attorney at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn in Detroit, Michigan and at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison in New York City. In addition to practicing law, Mr. Wade spent several years writing curriculum and conducting workshops for the Efficacy Institute, a leading non-profit educational consultancy focused on improving the academic performance of low-income students.

Mr. Wade holds a BA from Morehouse College, a JD from Harvard Law School and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business. In addition, during college he studied for one year at the University of Nairobi in Nairobi, Kenya.