Lightcast Acquires NACM, Embark Surveys

Acquisition from Career Leadership Collective Combines Surveys, Labor Data for New Perspective on Career Success After College

(Moscow, ID) - Sept. 21, 2023 - Lightcast and The Career Leadership Collective announced that Lightcast would acquire the Collective’s alumni survey business and enter into an ongoing partnership to support career readiness in higher education. Financial details were not disclosed.

The agreement combines the highly regarded National Alumni Career Mobility (NACM)  and Embark surveys of alumni with Lightcast’s database of more than 140 million career profiles. This combination will provide higher education with vital insight on what happens to alumni after graduation: where they start out, how their careers progress, and how effective their education was in providing the skills to succeed.

Lightcast will operate the Embark survey, which asks recent graduates about their “first destination” after college, and NACM, which surveys graduates five and 10 years after graduation. The surveys will be offered alongside Lightcast’s Alumni Pathways product, which supplies educational institutions with career and academic insights in partnership with National Student Clearinghouse.

The Career Leadership Collective will operate independently as a consulting and solutions group, providing training, events, executive search, and thought leadership for career leaders in higher education. The Collective’s Founder and CEO, Jeremy Podany, will continue in his role leading the company and will also have an advisory role with Lightcast.

The Collective’s partnership with Lightcast also includes a mutual referral relationship to ensure institutions have seamless access to career outcomes data, career advisory services, and ongoing career staff development. 

“By combining two of the most prominent career outcomes data products in higher education, institutions will be able to share their unique story of success and strategically adapt their career readiness practices across the institution. We are going beyond delivering data to connecting alumni career outcomes to the classroom, creating a continuous feedback loop to improve learner career success,” said Luke Jankovic, General Manager of Lightcast’s Education Division.  

“We are delighted to find such a good home for our Career Outcomes Data Services products,” said Podany, who started The Career Leadership Collective in 2016 and its data service four years ago. “There is incredible value in the one-stop benefits of ease, access, and quality that Lightcast and our partnership will provide to higher education institutions.”   

The Collective’s employees within its career outcomes data division will continue to run the survey operations, with uninterrupted service to current partner institutions.

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ABOUT LIGHTCAST

Lightcast provides trusted global labor market data, analytics, and expert guidance that empowers communities, corporations, and learning providers to make informed decisions and navigate the increasingly complex world of work. With a database of more than one billion job postings and career profiles, our team provides best-in-class customer service with robust data, clear analysis, and expert guidance on skills, jobs, and opportunities. 

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and Moscow, Idaho, Lightcast is active in more than 30 countries and has offices in the United Kingdom, Italy, New Zealand, and India. The company is backed by global private equity leader KKR. For more, visit www.lightcast.io. 

ABOUT THE CAREER LEADERSHIP COLLECTIVE

The Career Leadership Collective is a solutions group that provides consulting, research, training, events, executive search services, and thought leadership to serve the systemic career readiness needs of higher education. It has served over 1,000 colleges and universities since its founding in 2016. The Collective is among the most prominent, progressive, and trusted brands serving higher education on the topic of career readiness. It established the National Alumni Career Mobility survey four years ago and introduced Embark, a first destination alumni survey, in 2021. Founder and CEO Jeremy Podany is a leading voice on systemic career readiness in higher education. For more, visit https://www.careerleadershipcollective.com.

Press contact: Scott Bittle

Email: media@lightcast.io