Scott Kirkpatrick
BrainPOP
San Diego, CA USA
"All people in your life can help you in different ways. Always be learning."
Career Roadmap
Scott's work combines: Education, Business, and Working with Others
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
As CEO, everyone looks to you to have all the answers and that can create a lot of insecurities. You may start to question if you actually know what you're doing. I've actually always taken the approach of not knowing all the answers because you're not always going to get it right. We're all human. We make mistakes and we learn from them.
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Undergraduate
US Coast Guard Academy
Graduate Degree
Business Administration and Management
MIT Sloan School of Management
Life & Career Milestones
I've taken a lot of twists and turns
1.
My brother was diagnosed with leukemia and because my dad stayed with him, he was laid off from his job, which meant I had to drop out of college because we could no longer afford it.
2.
I had to find something else to do, so I joined the United States Coast Guard—I had always wanted to serve people and the Coast Guard’s mission was to save lives, so it was a great fit.
3.
After too many knee surgeries, I was medically discharged from the military and once again wasn’t really sure what to do.
4.
I decided to go back to school for my MBA.
5.
I got the opportunity to work in education, which also really aligned with my passion to serve others because education is the best way to improve lives.
6.
For the past 22 years, I built my career in education, working for companies like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, The Princeton Review, and General Assembly.
7.
I now work as the CEO for BrainPOP, an educational online platform that makes complicated subjects and ideas accessible and engaging for kids.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Myself:
Do I really know what I'm doing? Am I going to get it right?
How I responded:
As CEO, everyone looks to you to have all the answers and that can create a lot of insecurities. You may start to question if you actually know what you're doing. I've actually always taken the approach of not knowing all the answers because you're not always going to get it right. We're all human. We make mistakes and we learn from them.