Pearson

Pearson is the world’s biggest educational company.

It is also the world's leading book publisher.

Headquartered in London, it has 40,000 employees in 80 countries, although Pearson generates approximately 60% of its sales in North America. In 2014, it had revenues of $8.2 billion.

Pearson education business

Pearson provides a range of education products and services to institutions - schools, colleges and universities – and direct to individual learners, the 'retail' side of the business. It also has a 'wholesale' business selling education products and services to government, such as testing services and examinations, and the management of education data.

It is organised into three main business groupings: Pearson School, Pearson Higher Education and Pearson Professional.

Pearson in schools

Pearson's publishes textbooks and digital technologies for teachers and students across school ages. Its brands include: Heinemann, Longman, BBC Active and Bug Club.

It also provides exams and tests, as well as practice assessments and online tutoring services aligned to tests. For example, Pearson owns Edexcel, the UK's largest and only for-profit awarding body. In the US, it produces standardised tests aligned with common core academic standards.

It also provides assessments for teacher certification and teacher training around the world, as well as whole 'school Improvement services'.

Digitising learning

Pearson claims to have invested over $9bn in the digitisation and what it calls ‘creative destruction’ of education. 'By this I mean we’re intentionally tearing down an outdated, industrial model of learning and replacing it with more personalized and connected experiences for each student,' said Pearson Education's North American chief, Will Ethridge.

Pearson are pushing digital learning into the world's classrooms: digitising textbooks and content, as well as tests.

It has also invested in other digital tools that are designed to transform teaching and learning: adaptive learning technologies in partnerships with Knewton (where data and analytics are used to 'personalise' content, so that pupils can learn at their own pace); online assessment and reporting tools; and data management systems.

Digital education products include:

• Power School (www.powerschool.com): web-based student information system. It allows teachers to track pupils progress, as well as things like attendance and standards, and parents and students to monitor how well they are doing.
• Schoolnet (www.schoolnet.com): allows teachers to build and administer tests and collect data on student progress
• AIMSweb: helps teachers spot students needing additional help
• Fronter: a 'learning platform' designed to allow pupils to to learn 'whenever and wherever they choose'. Through it, pupils can: submit work, communicate with their teachers, and review personal study plans.
• TutorVista: provides online tutoring, homework help, test prep.

Book publishing

It is the largest book publisher in the UK, India, Australia and New Zealand, and the second largest in the US and Canada. In 2003 it had sales of £4,048m ($7,246m) and operating profits of £490m ($877m). Marjorie Scardino has been CEO since 1997. Its headquarters today are at 80 Strand, the former Shell Mex House.

In January 2007 it was widely reported that plans are afoot for Pearson to be taken over by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which drove the shares to new 5-year highs.

Pearson has branched out into related services: testing and learning software for students of all ages; data for financial institutions; public information systems for government departments. The Financial Times is a subsidiary of Pearson PLC.

They also own the following publishing houses: Penguin, Dorling Kindersley, Scott Foresman, Prentice Hall, Addison Wesley and Longman. Pearson is listed on the London and New York stock exchanges (UK: PSON; NYSE: PSO) and in 2007 had sales of £4,218m ($8,394m) and an operating profit of £634m ($1,262m).

People

• Dennis Stevenson

Board of Directors

Glen Moreno, Chairman | Robin Freestone, Chief Financial Officer | David Bell, Director for People and Chairman of Pearson Inc | Will Ethridge, Chief Executive, North American Education | Rona Fairhead Chief Executive, Financial Times Group | John Makinson, Chairman and Chief Executive, Penguin

Former employees

• Marjorie Scardino, ex-Chief Executive

Affiliations

• Media Standards Trust
• Chime Communications Plc
• Brunswick Group
• Community Action Network
  • Lord Gibson, chairman of Pearson Longman, which owns the FT
• Centre for European Reform
• ERA
• Digital Learning Alliance
• Media CSR Forum
• PubAffairs Public Affairs Manager for Edexcel, part of Pearson plc. Before joining Edexcel she was the Corpora...
• Porter Novelli, client 2004
• Don Cruickshank Information and Entertainment division of Pearson plc (which included the Financial Times)
• Ditchley Foundation
  • Dr Glen R Moreno Chairman, Pearson plc.
• Unilever
  • John Makinson, Group Finance Director of Pearson plc
• Lord Cowdray of Pearson printing and banking company. Lazards was owned by the Pearson family, headed by Lord Cowdray.
• Greg Dyke former Chairman and Chief Executive at Pearson Television
• Open Europe
  • Lord Blakenham former Chairman, Pearson Plc

Lobbying firms

• Blue Rubicon

Former lobbying firms

• Weber Shandwick, until May 2014

Resources

CNN story