EF Englishtown Announces New President: Andrew Wait

HONG KONG, March 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

EF Englishtown, the world's leading online English school, today announced Andrew Wait's appointment as EF Englishtown's President. A veteran of both Silicon Valley startups and household consumer brands, Andrew Wait joins EF Englishtown to play a leading role in the burgeoning global market of English training.

"Andrew has a proven track record of running incredibly successful online businesses. English training is one of the fastest growing industries, with over 1 billion English learners in the next 10 years. Englishtown is well positioned to capture this growth, and Andrew is integral to the next phase of Englishtown's expansion," says Bill Fisher, co-founder of EF Englishtown.

Since its founding, EF Englishtown has leveraged technology to create the best online English language learning experience and continues to be the industry leader. EF Englishtown was the first in its category to give its students 24-hour access to online speaking lessons with English teachers, video-based interactive simulations with web-based voice recognition, and a social learning layer across its entire 16-level curriculum. In 2011, EF Englishtown released services on iPhone and iPad, and redesigned the school with HTML5 and the latest web technologies. With over 15 million members, EF Englishtown is the largest language learning service in the world, and has been an e-learning pioneer for more than 15 years.

Andrew Wait brings his experience with consumer and web brands to one of the largest market opportunities on the Internet. His experience in digital brands is evident in his work with Kodak Gallery and Ancestry.com. As senior director of marketing at Kodak, Wait brought his experience in both offline and online marketing to drive promotions, viral marketing, affiliate programs, and channel marketing, eventually generating 70% growth in both customer base and revenue.  At Ancestry.com, his role in managing both marketing and product development oversaw a 60% expansion in user base and 24% revenue growth, culminating in its successful 2009 IPO.

About EF Englishtown

Originally conceived in collaboration with Apple, EF Englishtown is the world's largest online English school. EF Englishtown has served as the Official Language Training Supplier to the Beijing 2008 Olympics and will similarly help Russia in the 2014 Sochi Games. EF publishes the English Proficiency Index (http://www.ef.com/epi), measuring English ability across the world.

For media inquiries, please contact:

EF Englishtown
Jessica Balfour-Ogilvy
Tel: +852-2158-2936
press@ef.com