Biography

Dr. Mark Koan is the Senior Vice President for Technology Strategy and Partnerships at Canyon GBS, a growing Arizona-based education technology company and managed service provider originally launched in 2015. Canyon GBS exclusively services the higher education sector, and is a trusted North American partner for some of the largest institutions, EdTech companies, and non-profit organizations across the postsecondary education landscape. Canyon GBS is a two-time Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grantee in 2021 and 2023, for its work, expertise, and consulting on education technology and postsecondary success in higher education.

Dr. Koan is the founder of Eagle SCS LLC, a strategic consulting firm that assists colleges, universities, and non-profit organizations find innovative ways to leverage technology and data in order to address challenges related to student enrollment, retention, completion, and equity.

Previously, Dr. Koan was the Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and CIO for the Maricopa Community College District, a system comprising 10 colleges and 40 locations that served more than 130,000 students each year and added an estimated $7.2 billion annually to the region’s economy. In 2022, he was honored by CIO peers across the state as the Arizona CIO of the Year for the Public Sector. 

Under Dr. Koan’s leadership, Maricopa’s IT team received a global innovation award for their rapid deployment of advanced unified communication technologies at the start of the pandemic and earned the 2021-2022 Innovation of the Year Award for their creative combination of open source and cloud technologies to enhance student service.  While in that role, Dr. Koan also helped bring in nearly $2 million in public and private grant funding for the system, including substantial awards from the National Science Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Before serving as the CIO, Dr. Koan served as an Associate Vice Chancellor where he led the district's digital transformation efforts, launching the first system-wide mobile application for students and leading the development of Maricopa’s first comprehensive data lake. 

As the CIO for Phoenix College, Dr. Koan and  his team earned the Innovation of the Year Award for the Maricopa Community Colleges for their development of a mobile-friendly student portal, later deployed across the entire district. 

Before working for the Maricopa Community Colleges, Dr. Koan was an IT Director at Arizona State University where he led several diverse teams across multiple locations and helped develop and advance strategic alliances for ASU's University Technology Office, including work with key industry partners such as Google, Verizon and Amazon.

Dr. Koan has presented nationally and locally on a variety of topics including the use of enterprise systems to promote equitable student outcomes, enhancing the student experience through automation, and integrated systems for transforming the delivery of student services.

Dr. Koan earned his Doctorate of Education in Leadership and Innovation from Arizona State University (ASU). His dissertation focused on the development of communities of practice across organizations. He also received his Master of Arts from ASU, completed his undergraduate work at Northern Arizona University and earned his Associate’s Degree from Phoenix College.