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The official CEO.com podcast featuring unfiltered conversations with the leaders shaping our world.
Clint Betts: Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show. You are the CEO of Gravyty. Tell us what Gravyty is and how you became the CEO.
Justin Beck: Clint, I appreciate you having me. It’s great to connect with you today.
Gravyty is one of the leading pioneers in providing AI-powered engagement solutions to higher education, private K–12, and nonprofit institutions.
The company came together through the combination of three organizations. The original Gravyty business was a leader in higher education and nonprofit stewardship, fundraising, and alumni engagement tools that worked alongside CRM technologies. Then we combined that with Ivy and Ocelot, which were early pioneers in AI-powered virtual assistants and chatbots for recruiting, retention, alumni engagement, and fundraising.
As for how I got here, I’ve spent about 25 years in the edtech space, which makes me feel pretty old.
I started my career with companies like Apple and Blackboard during the early rise of online learning. Later, I had leadership opportunities with Kaltura, a video streaming company based in Israel and New York. After that, I spent time at Salesforce and Instructure, the online learning leader based in Salt Lake City.
Then, about three months ago, I joined Gravyty to help continue its expansion and customer-focused growth strategy.
Clint Betts: You basically just checked off every major name in edtech. They definitely picked the right person for this job.
I know quite a bit about companies like Blackboard and Instructure. Instructure came in and disrupted the LMS space in a lot of ways by moving everything to the cloud.
But Gravyty isn’t a learning management system. You mentioned engagement. Tell me exactly what Gravyty does and how it interacts with things like Instructure, Salesforce, or a CRM.
Justin Beck: Great question.
Gravyty’s mission is to create meaningful human connections at scale through AI.
Higher education institutions today have a collection of core systems: student information systems, CRMs, support platforms, learning management systems, and more. The challenge is that all of these systems tend to create silos across the student experience.
Students are in one environment, administrators are in another, faculty are in another, and support teams are somewhere else.
What Gravyty does is help break down those walls by creating a unified front-door experience.
Whether someone is interacting through a website, a chatbot, a fundraising platform, or an alumni engagement tool, we help institutions connect those experiences together.
At the same time, universities are facing staffing and budget pressures. They can’t simply hire unlimited people to provide support around the clock.
That’s where AI comes in. AI helps institutions scale human connection and support in a way that wasn’t previously possible.
Clint Betts: Give me a sense of what you think the future of higher education looks like.
Really, what’s the future of education?
Justin Beck: That’s a huge question. We could spend hours on it.
But I think institutions increasingly recognize that their value comes from delivering a complete experience—not just content.
Students value the relationships they build with professors, peers, mentors, and the broader campus community.
If you think back to the excitement around MOOCs a decade ago, the prediction was that everything would move online. But what was missing was the human connection. Students still wanted community, mentorship, and interaction.
I think higher education will continue to focus on creating those high-value experiences that lead to strong career outcomes.
Where companies like Gravyty help is on the administrative side. We reduce friction, remove complexity, and help students stay on track throughout their journey.
For example, we were speaking with a university recently where the financial aid office said 60% of their incoming questions were actually about housing or enrollment. Those questions needed to be routed elsewhere, but the institution still needed to ensure students didn’t get lost in the process.
That’s exactly the type of challenge we help solve.
Clint Betts: How were institutions trying to solve these problems before?
I imagine some of it was pretty archaic.
Justin Beck: They’ve tried a variety of approaches.
The first was simply hiring more people. But if you’re getting 30,000 inquiries over a two-week enrollment period, you can’t realistically scale staffing fast enough to handle that demand.
The second approach was building knowledge bases and web resources.
The problem is that today’s students don’t necessarily want to search through websites. They want immediate answers.
I have a college-aged student myself, and what I’ve noticed is that this generation expects information instantly. They don’t want to click through six pages trying to find an answer. They’re already talking to the university, so they expect the university to know who they are and provide the answer immediately.
Institutions have been trying to address this through staffing, websites, and various workarounds, but AI creates a much more scalable solution.
Clint Betts: Government funding is being reduced in a lot of places, including Utah.
That obviously makes donor engagement even more important. How are you helping universities engage donors?
Justin Beck: Universities are facing pressure from several directions.
They’re dealing with funding reductions, but they’re also seeing challenges attracting international students, which has historically been an important revenue source.
That means retention becomes more important than ever.
Students need to feel connected to the institution. They need to feel like they belong and are receiving value from the experience.
On the alumni side, advancement offices know their top 150 or 200 donors extremely well. The challenge is understanding the thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of other alumni, parents, and supporters who may have the potential to become donors.
That’s where AI becomes incredibly powerful.
AI can analyze large amounts of engagement data, identify people who show signs of giving potential, and help universities create personalized cultivation strategies.
It’s not that different from sales prospecting. You’re trying to determine who is most likely to engage and then build relationships accordingly.
Clint Betts: As you were talking, I immediately thought about NIL.
Have you been involved in that space?
Justin Beck: Absolutely.
It’s actually one of the fastest-growing areas of our business.
We acquired a company called Athlete Network, based in Overland Park, Kansas. They work with major athletic programs like Kansas and Texas Tech, among many others.
Originally, the focus was helping athletic departments stay connected with former athletes, create career opportunities, and encourage long-term engagement.
Then NIL happened.
Overnight, athletic departments and coaches found themselves needing to become fundraisers.
We’ve seen tremendous growth in our fundraising and stewardship tools because coaches now need ways to engage everyday supporters—not just major donors.
Maybe someone isn’t giving a million dollars, but they’re willing to contribute $500 or $1,500 to support a program through an NIL collective.
Athletic departments need lightweight, easy-to-use tools to facilitate those relationships.
Clint Betts: Coaches and athletic departments weren’t really built for fundraising.
Justin Beck: Exactly.
Athletic departments generally don’t have large IT organizations. They need solutions that are simple and easy to deploy.
And NIL has created an entirely new skill set they’ve had to develop very quickly.
Clint Betts: What does it mean to be a university president today?
That job feels dramatically different than it did even ten years ago.
Justin Beck: It really is.
Interestingly, we’re seeing more university presidents come from business backgrounds rather than traditional academic careers.
Fundraising has become such a critical part of the role.
We actually have university presidents using our fundraising communication tools to stay connected with key donors.
At the same time, these leaders are bringing operational rigor to institutions.
When you think about a major university, you’re essentially running a city. You have housing, dining, facilities, transportation, academics, technology, healthcare, and thousands of employees.
The ability to improve efficiency and strengthen financial sustainability has become one of the most important parts of the job.
Clint Betts: What does a typical day look like for you?
Justin Beck: It depends on which fire needs to be put out.
But I start every morning with exercise because it helps clear my head.
Then I meet with my executive leadership team. We discuss priorities, customer issues, team concerns, and anything that needs immediate attention.
After that, I try to spend at least half my day externally focused.
That could mean meeting with customers, prospects, industry leaders, or partners.
I also spend a lot of time talking directly with frontline employees—customer success managers, salespeople, developers—because that’s where you learn what’s really happening inside the business.
Clint Betts: How has Gravyty been funded?
Justin Beck: We’re backed by K1 Investment Management, a private equity firm based in Manhattan Beach, California.
K1 brought these businesses together because they saw how well the products fit together to support the entire institutional lifecycle.
What I really appreciate about K1 is that they’re very hands-on and consultative.
They don’t just provide capital and disappear. They have experts in sales, marketing, security, product development, and other disciplines who can help solve challenges alongside us.
That’s been tremendously valuable.
Clint Betts: How are you thinking about AI right now?
And what do you think we’ll be talking about six months from now?
Justin Beck: I think we’re moving from experimentation to scaled impact.
Eighteen months ago, most AI adoption in education centered around academics—things like content creation, tutoring, and student productivity.
Over the last year, we’ve started seeing more administrative use cases emerge.
Universities have been testing AI in different departments, but now they’re beginning to ask:
“How do we deploy this institution-wide?”
It reminds me of the early days of learning management systems. First, individual departments experimented with them. Eventually, universities adopted them across the entire institution.
I think we’re entering that phase with AI.
Clint Betts: What do you read?
Justin Beck: One of my favorite books is The Score That Matters by Ryan Hawk and Brooks Cupps.
The core idea is that we all have external scorecards placed on us by employers, society, and expectations.
But what really matters is building your own internal scorecard—your values, principles, and definition of success.
The book focuses on process over outcomes and emphasizes how living according to your own standards creates both success and fulfillment.
It’s a fantastic read.
Clint Betts: I’m definitely adding that to my list.
How do you think about culture, especially with a distributed workforce?
Justin Beck: We’re largely remote today, with smaller offices in Seattle and Israel.
I think intentionality is critical.
We make an effort to bring teams together quarterly because those face-to-face interactions are incredibly important. People leave those gatherings energized and connected.
Beyond that, I focus on three principles.
First, clarity and focus. Organizations can chase twenty-five priorities, but success comes from concentrating on a few critical initiatives.
Second, empathy and human connection. People perform better when they feel supported.
Third, curiosity over judgment.
I’m a huge Ted Lasso fan, and one of my favorite quotes from the show is, “Be curious, not judgmental.”
I think that principle is essential for building great culture.
Clint Betts: How are you feeling about the broader economy heading into 2026?
Justin Beck: We’re cautiously optimistic.
Things have stabilized.
Universities aren’t thrilled with every budget decision being made, but there’s less uncertainty than there was six months ago.
One trend I find particularly interesting is the growth of trade schools and vocational programs.
Many two-year programs are seeing enrollment increases of 20–30%.
As AI reshapes the workforce, people are reconsidering career paths, and there’s growing recognition that skilled trades are incredibly valuable.
Honestly, some tradespeople may end up earning more than certain AI professionals.
It’s creating a healthier balance in the economy.
Clint Betts: Finally, we end every interview with the same question.
At CEO.com, we believe the chances one gives are just as important as the chances one takes.
Who gave you a chance that helped get you where you are today?
Justin Beck: A leader named Brett Frazier.
When I was 27 years old, I was impatient and eager to advance my career at Blackboard.
Brett gave me the opportunity to lead a new sales team and later promoted me into a regional vice president role.
He challenged me harder than anyone else ever has.
He demanded preparation, executive presence, discipline, and curiosity.
Most importantly, he taught me to stay curious.
We’re still good friends today, and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity he gave me.
Clint Betts: That’s awesome.
Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show. Congratulations on everything you’re building. It’s an incredible company and an important one.
Let’s have you back in a year and see how things are going.
Justin Beck: Clint, I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.