Meet Our Leadership Team

Aaron Benz

Founder & Chief Executive Officer
#0 - Aaron Benz - HeadshotPro

Aaron Benz

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Aaron has been a creator all his life.  He has built student mobile apps, designed Big Data systems to support millions of sensors, and mentored young data scientists and developers to do the same.  In his free time, Aaron enjoys training dogs and competing with them. He is also a member of the Eastern Athletics Hall of Honor.

Alicia Densford

Chief Operations Officer
Alicia Densford

Alicia Densford

Chief Operations Officer

Alicia serves as Chief Operations Officer overseeing general functions across the organization. Prior to joining Degree Analytics, she was founder and CEO of Leading Edge Consulting providing education leadership and development support. Alicia has 20 years of experience in education, consulting and strategic planning. In her spare time, she can be found on the golf course, attending Memphis Tigers sporting events, or walking her dog across town. 

Ann Henson

Vice President - Partner Success
Ann Henson

Ann Henson

Vice President - Partner Success

Ann has over 30 years of diverse experience in educational technology serving in leadership capacity over Client Success, Product Development, Sales Operations, Strategic Account Sales and Professional Development. Starting out as a math and computer science teacher, Ann has a passion for helping underserved students reach their potential. Outside of work she is honing her carpentry skills and spoiling her five grandchildren as well as her two adopted Great Danes.

Marc Speed

Director - Sales Operations
Marc Speed

Marc Speed

Director - Sales Operations

A graduate of both Centre College & The University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Marc is a serial Do-It-Yourself-er, entrepreneur, outdoorsman, & perpetual student. Marc is a ground-floor team member of Degree Analytics whose background spans from automotive mechanic to assisting some of the largest healthcare systems in the country navigate mergers & acquisitions via operational & financial assessment. After moving to Texas to escape the cold winters of East Tennessee, he joined Degree Analytics & currently serves as the Sales Operations Director. When he’s not working, Marc enjoys time in the field and at home with his family of 3 and their two dogs.

Todd Hoffman

Director - Data Science
Todd Hoffman

Todd Hoffman

Director - Data Science

After graduating from West Chester University Todd started his career as a middle school teacher in the Washington DC area. He later joined CompassLearning traveling throughout the country supporting the implementation and use of educational technology in K-12 schools. In 2011, Todd, was an IT Director at a new charter school in the city of Pittsburgh where he remained until 2018 to start his own data analytics company called Mend the Gap. He also worked in the hospitality industry as IT Director for Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh.

Jeremiah Smith

Vice President - Technology
Jeremiah Smith

Jeremiah Smith

Vice President - Technology

Jeremiah’s father was in the navy so he moved around the states quite a bit. He worked in construction for 10 years as an electrician and hvac tech. He taught himself how to code and when he moved to Austin, his brother in law got me an internship at Phunware as a qa tech. Jeremiah quickly turned his internship into a full time position. While at Phunware he became one of their top developers working on national brands like E! Entertainment and McDonalds. He even wrote an app and got an Editor’s choice from Apple. He went on to work for MapMyFitness who were later bought out by Under Armour. He also helped design a framework to integrate Under Armour’s first gen wearables. Jeremiah moonlighted on the side working with Aaron to implement Zync Up.And now we are here.