Robbie Kellman Baxter

Peninsula Strategies

We help organizations build forever transactions with the people they serve. This forever transaction is the secret to predictable, recurring revenue, higher corporate valuations and deeper, more meaningful relationships. We've worked with some of the most well-regarded brands in the world, including Netflix, Microsoft and the Wall Street Journal, as well as with visionary start-up entrepreneurs and mission-driven nonprofits & associations. You can read more about our clients' results here: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/clients/

Founder, Peninsula Strategies

Strava

Advisory Board Member

LinkedIn

I've authored and facilitated 10 courses, including Value Creation, Brand Building, Membership, Networking, Customer Success, Service Orientation, Business Development and B2B Sales. See the full list here: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/robbie-kellman-baxter?u=2125562

Instructor 

For over two decades, I have been helping organizations leverage subscription pricing, digital communities, and freemium models to build deeper relationships with their customers and generate predictable recurring revenue. I am the founder of Peninsula Strategies, a consulting firm that has worked with some of the most well-regarded brands in the world, such as Netflix, Microsoft, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as with visionary start-up entrepreneurs and mission-driven nonprofits and associations.

I am also an advisor, a speaker, an educator, and an author. I serve on the advisory board of Strava, a social network for athletes, and I share my insights and expertise on subscription and membership models through keynote speeches, podcasts, and LinkedIn Learning courses. I have written two books, The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction, that anticipated and defined the massive transformation from ownership to membership and the rise of subscription pricing. My passion is to help organizations create forever transactions with the people they serve and achieve long-term growth and sustainability.

Lead the outstanding global Content Strategy and Production team as we build the LinkedIn Learning library. Our common purpose is to help individuals and organizations invest in and transform themselves. It's work that's challenging, fun, and interesting every day, with a team of enormously talented folks. And in all the years I've been in learning, it's work that's never felt more meaningful.

Head of Global Content, LinkedIn Learning

Lead the outstanding global team that drives content strategy for the LinkedIn Learning library, including building our roadmaps, finding the best instructors, and working on a variety of key strategic initiatives in partnership with Production, Product, Sales, Marketing, Business Development, and Business Operations.

A few personal, team, and cross-functional highlights include:

* Developing and building out dynamic new content types, including our AI coach, practice exams, interactive coding courses, audio titles, live sessions, 1,000+ creator-driven nanotips, and more.
* Growing our global AI program by 7X over 3 years.
* Scaling content licensing partnerships across multiple languages and content areas, including adding co-branded certificate programs with 20 partners.
* Serving as co-sponsor for key trust and equity efforts.
* Adding machine-translated captions for 20+ languages and launching new sites in Bahasa Indonesia, Dutch, Italian, Korean, Polish, Turkish, bringing LinkedIn Learning to 13 total language sites.
* Leading our global content strategy team through the challenges of 2020/2021, including working with our Production friends to shift overnight to a 100% remote-recording pipeline in the Spring of 2020.
* Launching a mentor program that connects 150+ people across the Content org.

Head of Global Content Strategy, LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com in May 2015 and I joined the company as the Director of International Content. 

In this role, I was responsible for leading our international content teams, as well as driving content strategy and execution for our international programs. These included original, translated, and adapted content for multi-language libraries that produced 1,000+ courses per year. I also worked on a variety of initiatives related to our overall content program (international + english). 

Team and personal highlights included:

* Launching Brazilian-Portuguese and Mandarin libraries, bringing our total to 7 programs (EN + DE, FR, ES, JP, BP, ZH).
* Helping drive our global innovation strategy.
* Collaborating closely with product, engineering, and marketing colleagues as we developed our platform, including advocating for an all-language product that's become an essential part of our offering.
* Developing our metadata strategy, including creating and leading our global Content taxonomy team.
* Supporting numerous sales efforts, including client panels, calls, materials, as well as sales conference presentations for our EMEA and Global teams.

Head of International Content Strategy, LinkedIn Learning

Upwardly Global

Fortunate for this opportunity to support Upwardly Global, in its mission to eliminate employment barriers for immigrant and refugee professionals while advancing the inclusion of their skills into the U.S. economy.

Communications Committee member

Long Sky Media

Co-founded Long Sky Media, authored one of our first books, and co-created OptiListen, an easy-to-use free iPhone app that aims to help people become better listeners, one conversation or meeting at a time. (OptiListen.com)

Co-founder, book author, and co-creator, OptiListen

Lynda.com

In early 2013, video2brain was acquired by Lynda, and I returned to Lynda to drive our international content program. 

Individual and team accomplishments included:

* Doubling title output in two years from 400+ to 800+ online training courses; developing new workflows to boost course quality; launching a new content planning framework to drive rich, inter-connected coverage of key topics.
* Overseeing the creation of our Japanese-language content library (Lynda.jp), which launched in early 2015 with 120 courses .
* Reducing translation costs by 50 percent; launching 10+ new weekly series; building out live action and skills offerings.
* Driving the development of analytical tools that took existing data and helped refine and inform our content and business planning.
* Representing Lynda.com as a speaker at the 2015 Online Education Summit in Shenzhen, China.
* For the first year after the video2brain acquisition, I also managed revenue forecasts for the German, French, and Spanish programs to target, and drove business development to over three times projections.
* Promoted to Senior Director of Content, International in March, 2014

Director of International Content Strategy

video2brain

Having grown up partially in Europe (five years in Holland), joining the wonderful Austria-based team at video2brain was a personal and career milestone.

As GM for the English-language library, I recruited and managed our United States staff; we quickly developed a workflow that integrated production in Europe, content and QA in the US, and authors recording in both Europe and North America. And in three years, we grew the library from 75 to 1,000+ hours of content, and from 10 to 266 courses. 

When we hit “critical mass,” I worked with the CEO and the head of product to drive the launch of our English-language subscription service. This was a very roll-up-the-sleeves role, and along the way I had the chance to tackle everything from acquiring and developing titles, to negotiating partnerships, to managing our English-language newsletter, podcast, and social media channels, to taking my own turn in front of the camera.

In late 2011, my role expanded to cover all our Content programs, as well as our business development efforts. This included overseeing a 500+ title/year list in English, German, French, and Spanish. Business development efforts included negotiating and directing custom and licensed content projects with leading companies in multiple languages.

Other projects in this role included working with the head of product to develop several site features that improved customer experience and boosted lead nurturing/lead conversion, as well as  numerous cross-library initiatives ranging from creating pricing tables for enterprise sales, to improving our tools and reporting for tracking subscriber behavior.

Director of Content and Business Development; GM, English-language Library

lynda.com

At Lynda.com I left the world of books to focus on online education. As Lynda's director of content, I drove title acquisitions and title planning strategy for our market-leading library of online video training courses. 

While at Lynda, I also developed our publication planning system, and recruited, hired, and supervised a team of content and acquisitions managers.

Director of Content

O'Reilly Media

In June 2007, I joined O'Reilly Media, managing the Digital Media division, which included a ten-person print, web, video, marketing, and editorial/production team. 

During my time at O'Reilly, my division achieved double-digit year-over-year growth in a declining market. In addition to our line of books, we developed sponsored microsites for Adobe and Apple. 

I also initiated our video training program. This included staffing the team, overseeing the launch of a video series that has earned 1M+ views, as well as the creation of our first long-form video training course, Lost ActionScript Weekend. Produced in partnership with Adobe, Lost ActionScript Weekend was a wonderful multi-camera production, recorded on a remarkably low budget, and filmed in a rented house overlooking Tamales Bay.

General Manager & Publisher, Digital Media Divison

Self-employed

In late 2006, I took a sabbatical to work on some creative projects, including co-writing a sitcom that was staged as a live play, and producing a series of interviews with working authors, musicians, painters, poets, cartoonists, comics, and other artists. I also worked as a freelance content strategy consultant.

Writer

Sybex / John Wiley & Sons

In June 2005, John Wiley & Sons acquired Sybex, and I joined the company as vice president & publisher for Sybex's list of graphics, web marketing, and computer/video game books. This role gave me the  opportunity to help integrate the Sybex team as well as our partnerships, authors, and titles, into a new and considerably larger company with wider reach. 

Titles published at Wiley included Second Life: The Official Guide, a best-selling digital imaging title called Skin, Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, which was the first title in a new series that went on to feature several best-sellers, and official books from Autodesk (such as Introducing Maya) and from Microsoft (such as Age of Empires III: Official Strategies & Secrets).

Vice President and Publisher

Sybex Computer Books

* Publisher / Associate Publisher: February 2000 - June 2005 (promoted to Publisher October 2004)
* Acquisitions & Publications Manager / Acquisitions & Developmental Editor: October 1995 - February 2000 (promoted to Acquisitions & Publications Manager in October 1997)

In 1995 I returned to Sybex to work on content acquisitions and development. The next several years were a formative time in my career, during which I learned about working with outstanding content creators, developing content, building and managing fantastic teams, negotiating corporate partnerships, and launching new product lines. I also met and learned from some wonderful colleagues, several of whom I've been fortunate to continue to work with over the years.

Publisher

I've spent the last decade+ leading and building world-class content strategy teams, launching and developing business units and libraries, creating strategies and workflows, designing and launching new content types with my team, and developing collaborative corporate partnerships. 

During this period, I've also played a key role in the integrations of video2brain into Lynda.com, Lynda.com into LinkedIn, and LinkedIn Learning into Microsoft.

Specialties: Leadership, content and product strategy, business development, product development, and marketing. Expertise in video, web, and print, and the points in between. Extensive editorial background. P&L/budget responsibility. Experienced with international markets, including managing multinational teams. Writer.

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Robbie Kellman Baxter

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