Anthony Hughes, co-founder and CEO of Tech Elevator, stepped down last week so he has time to "reflect and recharge" before embarking on his next social impact venture.
Hughes started the 14-week computer coding boot camp in Cleveland with six students in July 2015 after observing that a lack of digital literacy in Northeast Ohio was having a throttling effect on the region's growth and economy. Tech Elevator expanded to Columbus the next year.
"What was just an idea a few short years ago, today has resulted in billions of dollars of lifetime earnings lift collectively for our graduates, in turn, positively impacting their families and the broader communities around them," Hughes wrote in a LinkedIn post.
"We’ve become an alternative source of high-quality tech talent for nearly 1,000 companies across the country and across all industries, many of them engaging more deeply with us to drive diversity initiatives and help elevate their workforce from within," he said.
Tech Elevator took a big growth step in December 2020 when it was acquired by Stride Inc., the Herndon, Virginia-based education management organization that provides alternatives to traditional brick-and-mortar education for public school students from kindergarten through 12th grade as well as professional skills training in health care and technology for adults.
"It wasn't until the pandemic hit us really hard – people were being displaced in the workplace en masse – that we considered an acquisition," Hughes told sister publication Cleveland Business Journal in March 2021.
At that point, Tech Elevator had expanded into Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Philadelphia.
"We were growing fast, but we weren't growing fast enough to be able to truly impact this job loss at a critical moment in the history of the country," Hughes said.
As part of Stride, Tech Elevator still does in-person coding boot camps in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Pittsburgh, said Chris Caputo, Tech Elevator's chief marketing officer. But much of the organization's training takes place online, as does outreach to employers who can hire its graduates.
The most recent class of 49 graduated in Columbus last month, said an email from Kevin Gadd, Columbus campus director.
In August 2023, Tech Elevator began an "operational consolidation" with Galvanize, which also was acquired by Stride in 2020 and best known for its software engineering boot camps. According to a release, the consolidation is aiming at creating a broader, deeper organization with more resources to drive student outcomes.
Before the consolidation began, Tech Elevator and Galvanize operated independently as part of the same team, Caputo said. But by combining resources, Tech Elevator now has access to 4,500 "hiring partners" — companies that hire its boot camp graduates — which is up from about 1,000 hiring partners it had on its own, he said.
While Hughes' leadership at Tech Elevator earned him finalist spots on EY Entrepreneur of the Year lists in 2020 and 2021, it wasn't his first attempt at having a social impact. He ran the entrepreneurial mentoring program at JumpStart Inc., the nonprofit venture developer in Cleveland, from October 2011 until August 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile.
"As far as what’s next, I’m exploring new opportunities to leverage what I’ve learned — to build, to invest, to influence policy and to give back— all with an eye on social impact," Hughes said in his Thursday post. "But first, I’ll take a moment to reflect and recharge."
