Skillsoft names Bernard Barbour Chief Technology and Product Officer to lead Percipio platform roadmap
Skillsoft has appointed Bernard Barbour as Chief Technology and Product Officer, placing responsibility for both product direction and technology execution under a single role as the company advances its Percipio platform strategy.
The appointment signals a shift toward tighter alignment between skills intelligence, learning delivery, and platform infrastructure, as enterprises look to move faster from skills insight to workforce action.
Skillsoft positions Percipio as the foundation of its enterprise offering, combining learning content, skills data, and workforce insights into a single system. The company says the platform is designed to help organizations identify current capabilities, surface gaps, and connect learning activity directly to business needs.
Barbour will oversee the continued evolution of that platform, with responsibility for engineering, AI, data, and product teams. He will report to Ron Hovsepian, Chief Executive Officer at Skillsoft.
Background rooted in scaling enterprise systems
Before joining Skillsoft, Barbour served as Chief Technology Officer at Indigo Agriculture, where he led modernization efforts across core platforms and data capabilities. Earlier, he spent more than a decade at Cimpress, overseeing global platform teams responsible for content creation tools, design technologies, and personalization systems used by millions of customers.
Skillsoft points to that experience as relevant as it seeks to operate Percipio as a system of record for skills, rather than a collection of disconnected learning tools.
The company frames the leadership change against growing frustration among employers managing fragmented learning, HR, and skills platforms.
CEO Hovsepian says, “Bernie joins Skillsoft at a pivotal moment as organizations reimagine how they prepare their people for constant change. He brings strong, hands-on experience building and applying AI at scale, turning customer needs into measurable outcomes.”
Focus on removing friction from skills progress
Barbour says his priority will be reducing complexity for customers trying to make progress inside increasingly crowded enterprise technology stacks.
Bernard Barbour says, “Customers are trying to move faster while navigating fragmented tools and growing complexity. My focus is on listening closely, understanding what’s getting in their way, and helping deliver solutions that make progress easier to achieve.”
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