When a company built by an ex-teacher reaches 2 million students, the next question is how to reach the millions more still waiting. For Branching Minds, the answer involves a leadership change that pairs a seasoned edtech executive with a founder who wants to get back to building classroom tools.
Branching Minds, a K–12 education technology company that helps schools identify and support students who need extra help, announced that Mitch Benson has been named Chief Executive Officer, effective October 1, 2026. Co-Founder Maya Gat, who led the company since founding it in 2013, becomes Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Chair of the Board of Directors. Co-Founder David Magier remains on the board and will continue collaborating with Benson on mergers and acquisitions, strategic contracts, and legal strategy.
Gat started Branching Minds after experiencing the problem firsthand in her own classroom: educators had more data on students than ever before but few practical ways to turn that information into timely, targeted assistance. Along with Magier, she launched the company in New York in 2013 to tackle the heavy lifting of Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) by pulling academic, behavioral, attendance, and social-emotional data into a single platform and offering teachers actionable, research-backed next steps.
What began as a tool for a handful of schools has expanded into a platform used by nearly 300,000 educators in more than 500 districts across 38 states, improving outcomes for over 2 million students. Along the way, Branching Minds became a Certified B Corporation with a B Impact Score of 137.6, the highest of any education support company worldwide. Its culture earned a spot on Fortune’s Best Small Workplaces™ list for the second year in a row, ranking #8 nationally, with Great Place to Work® Certification™ for 2026–2027. The product also won two 2026 CODiE Awards, for Best Collaborative Solution for Teachers and Best Productivity and Workflow Tool for Teachers, plus 2026 EdTech Awards for Personalized Learning and Visionary Leadership.
“When I was teaching, I watched kids slip through the cracks because the adults around them couldn’t see the full picture. We built Branching Minds to fix that, and it now works for two million students,” says Maya Gat, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer. “Doubling that impact will take someone who has done it before, and Mitch has. That frees me to spend my time where I started: making the product better for teachers and driving stronger outcomes for students.”
Benson joined Branching Minds as President in January 2026 and has since taken charge of product, engineering, security, operations, finance, and revenue while leading multi-year strategic planning. He brings more than two decades of experience across education technology, vertical SaaS, and large-scale platform growth. He spent over a decade at Instructure, where he helped scale the company from under $50 million to nearly $700 million in annual recurring revenue, navigating two private equity transactions, two IPOs, and a shift from a single product to a multi-product education platform. As Chief Product Officer and later Chief Strategy Officer, he led the development of Canvas, the #1 learning management system in education, and oversaw more than $1 billion in strategic acquisitions, including Parchment and LearnPlatform.
Before Instructure, Benson held senior leadership roles at Pearson and Microsoft, directing global education technology teams and large-scale digital transformation initiatives. Earlier in his career, he worked in public education and statewide technology leadership in Washington, where he managed technology systems supporting schools across the state.
“Two million students is a remarkable start, and it’s still a fraction of the kids who need this kind of support. My job is to get Branching Minds into more districts without losing what made educators trust it in the first place. Maya and David built a product teachers actually want to use. I don’t intend to change that,” said Mitch Benson, CEO of Branching Minds.
As Chief Innovation Officer, Gat will oversee learning engineering focused on readiness, adoption, and student impact, along with integrating new capabilities into the Branching Minds platform. As Executive Chair, she will lead the Board of Directors and work with Benson on governance and long-term strategy.
“Maya and I are so proud to have built a company that outperforms on culture and on outcomes, and we are more bullish about Branching Minds today than we have ever been. Mitch has built and scaled some of the most widely used platforms in education, and he has done it while keeping educators at the center,” said David Magier, Co-Founder and Board Member of Branching Minds. “We are so excited to support Mitch as he leads our next chapter of growth and impact.”
Branching Minds partners with K–12 schools and districts to help educators streamline differentiated instruction and personalize learning through a comprehensive MTSS solution. By bringing academics, behavior, attendance, social-emotional learning, and safety into one unified system, Branching Minds helps teams act earlier, collaborate more effectively, and drive measurable academic and behavioral outcomes for every student. Since 2013, the company has worked with nearly 300,000 educators in more than 500 districts across 38 states, improving outcomes for over 2 million students. Learn more at www.branchingminds.com.
Why it matters: This leadership transition at a certified B Corp with a top workplace ranking signals how mission-driven edtech companies balance growth with product integrity. With a CEO who scaled a platform to nearly $700 million in revenue and a founder returning to product innovation, Branching Minds is betting it can reach the next wave of students without the burnout that often shadows rapid expansion.
Abigail Woodworth
Branching Minds
