Robert K. Arena, Jr., M.Ed.
Robert Arena is a senior technology and education executive with more than three decades of leadership spanning digital strategy, program management, and online learning. His career is defined by a consistent thread: using technology to empower people and expand what's possible in how they learn, work, and engage - and helping organizations find the opportunity inside the structural changes that each new wave of technology brings.
Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, 2016 to 2024
Most recently, Robert served as Senior Director of Innovation and Continuous Improvement at the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY), where he led the Center's research partnerships and evaluation strategy. He collaborated across Johns Hopkins schools to secure a Provost's DELTA Grant to develop foundational knowledge for integrating generative AI in K-12 education. He also partnered with the Center for Research and Reform in Education to design the formal evaluation framework and systematic data collection strategy that prepared CTY for its next accreditation cycle.
Previously, as Senior Director of Online Programs at CTY, Robert led a portfolio of 175+ online courses serving a global student body, growing annual enrollments 50% to more than 20,000 students and directing 30+ program managers and 850+ remote instructional staff. He led the Middle States Association (MSA-CESS) review that renewed CTY's seven-year accreditation and secured WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) co-accreditation for the first time. When COVID-19 doubled program demand, he forecast the staffing need and scaled operations while maintaining quality; by 2022, more than 94% of parents recommended the program.
Connections Academy, a Pearson company, 2009 to 2016
Before Johns Hopkins, Robert spent seven years at Connections Academy, a Pearson company, rising to Executive Director of Curriculum Product Development. He scaled multimedia production from 7 to 40+ team members and co-founded a PMI-based project management framework spanning 175+ FTEs and hundreds of contractors, delivering an accessible, standards-aligned K-12 curriculum honored with USDLA and Eddie awards - work that carried a national curriculum into the mobile-and-tablet era.
Carton Donofrio Partners, 2004 to 2008
As Vice President of Interactive at Carton Donofrio Partners in Baltimore, Robert drove a 134% revenue increase in the agency's digital practice. On the agency's Walden University account, the numbers started to show which ads worked, and that meant questioning creative choices nobody had questioned before. The technology was ready well before the people were. Robert helped build new relationships between the people who made the work and the people who measured it.
The political Internet, 1995 to 2001
Earlier, his career made him a pioneer of digital strategy. He helped define the political Internet - as Director of Internet Strategy for Dole/Kemp '96, then advising gubernatorial campaigns - and founded Presage Internet Campaigns in 1999. In 2000, he participated in a State Department democracy-building project in Jakarta, Indonesia, training NGOs on the use of the Internet in governance and elections.
Presage continues the practice he founded in 1999 - same name, same conviction that the technology is only ever half the story.
Robert holds a Master of Education from Boston College and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a minor in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and works with clients globally.
He writes about technology, education, and leadership at The Participant Observer.