Linda Zecher
Linda Zecher Higgins (born May 4, 1953) is an American executive who is the managing director of The Barkley Group since January 2017. She most recently served as the president, CEO and director of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a global education and learning company. In the past she had worked as the corporate vice president of the Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector business unit until September 2011. Additionally she had served as the president and CEO of Evolve Corporation, as the senior vice president of Oracle, as a very early vice president of PeopleSoft, and in several senior positions in Bank of America. She began her career as a geophysicist with Texas Instruments. Early life and education Zecher was born in Middletown, Ohio, as one of two children. Her mother was a homemaker and her father was self-made. From 1971, Zecher studied earth science at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1975. During her college years she had a non-typical job working at the county jail. Career Early leadership positions Following field experience as a geophysicist with Texas Instruments in Midland, Texas she joined Bank of America as the vice president of the Business Services division. During her tenure she moved the Services division from a mainframe HR and Payroll Service Bureau to PC based applications that were marketed to the bank's Service Bureau customers. While at BofA she became introduced to a very young software company focused on people management. She saw enough value in the software that she joined the company, PeopleSoft, as its 9th employee. Following PeopleSoft, Zecher joined Oracle as senior vice president in 1977 with responsibility for building Oracle's Application business in Public Sector, Higher Education, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Financial Services and the Utilities markets. She tendered her resignation in March 2002 to become CEO of Evolve Corporation. Evolve Corporation, an enterprise professional services automation software company, was a publicly traded company controlled by Private Equity firms. The company had gone through difficult times following the dot com boom. During a one-year time frame, she stabilized the company, sold the assets and took the liabilities through a bankruptcy. Microsoft Zecher joined Microsoft in 2003 to lead the US Public Sector organization which focused on government, education and health customers. Within 3 years, she grew the revenue from just under $1B to $2B. The catalyst for growth was an extensive reorganization resulting in 40% more customer-facing employees. Accompanying the realignment was a focus on accountability and customer satisfaction. Her success in the US Public Sector led to her being named corporate vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector organization. The worldwide business unit had over 2,000 employees serving government, education and health customers in over 100 countries. Under her leadership the business experienced double digit growth each year rising to over $10B. She resigned from Microsoft in September 2011 when she was recruited to lead Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Zecher was named president, CEO and director of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), a