FORBES.COM42
DECEMBER 31, 20 19It’s 9 a.m. two days be-
fore Thanksgiving in Arkansas, and Walmart
executives are dragging their suitcases around
a windowless office building in search of a
large conference room. They settle on an in-
terior lunchroom with dull gray carpet, claim-
ing one side of a long table in the corner and
gesturing for their guests to sit opposite them.
Ellie Bertani, Walmart’s director of workforce
strategy, says she’s struggling to find quali-
fied people to staff the company’s expanding
network of 5,000 pharmacies and 3,400 vi-
sion centers. Her fellow Walmart execs are si-
lent, but Rachel Romer Carlson, 31, cofound-
er and CEO of Guild Education, sees her open-
ing. Without hesitation she says her team can
work with Walmart and find a solution fast.
“You guys and us,” she says, “let’s do it!”
Carlson flew to Bentonville from Guild’s
Denver headquarters the day before. Dressed
in a sensible navy blazer and black slacks,
she hasn’t bothered with makeup. Since 7:30
that morning she’s been huddling with teams
of Walmart brass, going over options to train
workers for those new jobs. They range from a
one-year pharmacy technician certificate pro-
gram offered by a for-profit online outfit called
Penn Foster to an online bachelor’s degree in
healthcare administration at nonprofit South-
ern New Hampshire University.
Carlson’s groundbreaking idea when she
launched Guild four years ago: help compa-
nies offer education benefits that employ-
ees will actually use. Many big employers will
pay for their workers to go to school (it’s a tax
break), but hardly any workers take advantage
of the opportunity. Applying and signing up for
courses can be cumbersome, and in most in-
stances employees have to front the tuition and
wait to be reimbursed. Meanwhile, many col-
leges are desperate for students because they
have small—or nonexistent—endowments and
are financially dependent on tuition. Manynonselective online programs spend more than
$3,000 to attract each new student. Carlson
charges schools a finder’s fee (she won’t say
how much) for the students she delivers from
her corporate partners.
So far Guild has signed up more than 20
companies, including Disney and Taco Bell.
Guild gets paid only if students complete their
coursework, so a full 150 of the company’s 415
staffers serve as coaches who help employees
apply to degree programs and plan how to bal-
ance their studies with work and family. When
a company like Walmart requests a customized
training course, Guild solicits proposals from
as many as 100 education providers (nearly all
of them online) and recommends the programs
it deems best. It also negotiates tuition dis-
counts and facilitates direct payments between
employers and schools, a big plus for workers
who would otherwise have to wait months to
be reimbursed.
Carlson, an alumna of the 2017 Forbes 30
Under 30 list and a judge on the 2020 list, says
she has already channeled $100 million in tu-
ition benefits to workers. She expects 2019
revenue to top $50 million, and Guild inves-
tor Byron Deeter of Bessemer Venture Part-
ners predicts 2020 revenue of more than $100
million. In mid-November Carlson closed her
fifth round of financing, led by General Cat-
alyst, bringing her total money raised to $228
million at a $1 billion valuation. In the sleepy,
well-intentioned world of edtech, Guild is
one of only a few startups whose values have
soared, says Daniel Pianko, a New York-based
edtech investor with no stake in the company.
“I can see a path for Guild to be a $100 bil-
lion company,” says Paul Freedman, CEO of
San Francisco venture firm Entangled Group,
who has known Carlson since she was in busi-
ness school and was one of Guild’s earliest
investors.
When asked to detail Guild’s inner workings,
like its strategy for soliciting custom courses,
Carlson eschews specifics and delivers what
sounds like a political stump speech: “The
economy's moving so fast,” she says. “We can't
let higher education dictate the skills and com-
petencies that we need five to ten years from
now.”
There’s a reason she talks this way. Her
grandfather Roy Romer was a three-term
(1987–1999) Democratic governor of Colora-
do before spending six years as superintendent
of Los Angeles’ public schools. Carlson startedI
CONTRARIANENTREPRENEURSGuild Education Cont.HOW TO PLAY IT
By Jon D.
Markman
Pluralsight is a
great way to play
the rise of online
education. The
company sells
subscriptions
to fi rms looking
to onboard new
hires or upgrade
the skills of exist-
ing technology
workers. And with
online courses in
cloud comput-
ing architecture,
cybersecurity,
mobile, design
and data science,
its services are
in high demand.
During the
quarter ended
September 30,
sales grew 34%
year-over-year,
to $82.6 million.
Pluralsight went
public at $15 in
May 2018. Shares
zoomed to $38
by September.
Since then the
stock has slipped
to about $16.45.
The decline looks
like an excellent
longer-term buy-
ing opportunity.
Jon D. Markman
is president of
Markman Capital
Insight and
author of
Fast Forward
Investing.PATRICKWELSHFOR^ FORBES