Babbel’s new leaders: Hermione McKee is CFO, Julie Hansen is CRO
Hermione McKee joins the Babbel leadership team as CFO
U.S. CEO Julie Hansen becomes CRO (Chief Revenue Officer)
New lineup focuses on monetization and further growth
Babbel, the world’s no.1 selling language-learning app, welcomes Hermione McKee as its new CFO, while current U.S. CEO Julie Hansen assumes the newly created position of CRO (Chief Revenue Officer). Both McKee and Hansen have impressive resumes: Hermione previously worked as CFO at the Berlin gaming startup Wooga, as well as Hello Fresh, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Julie has been Babbel’s CEO in the United States since 2017 and has made the U.S. the business’ strongest growth market. She was previously COO at Business Insider and held positions at NCAA.com, Condé Nast Publications, and Time Inc. With a formidable executive team, Babbel will continue to expand its position as a global market leader. In 2020, the company sold its 10 millionth subscription, making it the best-selling language learning app in the world.
“The market potential for digital learning products is huge,” says Hermione McKee, Babbel CFO. “In this environment, Babbel is well and truly leading the pack, no doubt also due to the quality of the product. Whilst not a linguist myself, I was able to successfully get into different languages using Babbel. I look forward to working with a product that offers clear value for its users and for a company whose values I stand behind.”
“The last four years at Babbel have been a steep learning curve, aimed at making the US our most successful market - which we accomplished,” says Julie Hansen, Babbel CRO and U.S. CEO. "As CRO, my ambition is to accelerate our growth by leveraging the expertise of our outstanding teams in New York and Berlin."
“2021 is planned as another year of strong growth. Our goal is to help even more people around the world learn a language successfully,” says Arne Schepker, Babbel CEO. “We have two very experienced managers in Hermione McKee and Julie Hansen. Which is a good thing, because we have very ambitious plans.”
As CFO, Hermione McKee is now in charge of Finance, Business Intelligence and Legal. As CRO, Julie Hansen is responsible for all revenue-generating teams. Both report to Babbel CEO Arne Schepker.
About Babbel
Driven by the purpose of creating mutual understanding through language, Babbel has been building digital language learning products for consumers and businesses since 2007. The Babbel app helps people connect and communicate across cultures, whether for travel, friendship, or career advancement. Based on a deep knowledge of how we learn languages, Babbel aims to make learners conversational as fast as possible. And it works: Studies from institutions like Michigan State University, Yale University and the City University of New York demonstrate the efficacy of Babbel's language learning methods. Millions of language learners agree.
Babbel's secret sauce is the blend of true expertise, understanding of how humans learn, and the latest technology. Starting with one of 60,000 lessons across 15 languages hand-crafted by experts, the learner experience constantly adapts through behavior analysis to provide high quality interactive content that makes understanding a new language easy, from Spanish to Indonesian.
Because Babbel is for everyone, its team reflects this diversity. Across headquarters in Berlin and New York, a team from more than 80 nationalities represent the backgrounds and perspectives that make humans unique. With over 25 million subscriptions sold and an industry-leading retention rate, Babbel creates genuine connections with learners worldwide. For more information, visit www.babbel.com or download the apps in the App Store or Play Store.
