Our Team
MyGuru is lead by an experienced team of educators, powered by an impressive group of accomplished tutors, and supported by a strong network of Partners. Browse this page to learn more.
Leadership
Our leadership team is committed to providing solutions to help our customers succeed academically. Our leaders bring diverse and highly accomplished educational and professional backgrounds to help us continually improve upon our ability to meet our customers’ academic needs.
Mark Skoskiewicz – Founder & Managing Tutor
Mark graduated from Indiana University with degrees in Finance, History, and Philosophy. While at Indiana, he worked as an economics tutor for the athletic department and for a private tutoring company. He also served as an undergraduate intern for the economics department. After Indiana, he worked for four years at a strategy consulting firm called Marakon Associates, helping large companies develop better competitive strategies, where he progressed from intern to senior consultant. He is currently an MBA student at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Karthik Ganapathi – Co-founder
Karthik has a Masters in Engineering from University of Missouri. He worked for several years as a software engineer, before returning to school to obtain his MBA from the University of Chicago. After his MBA, Karthik spent 4 years at Marakon as a strategy consultant. He is currently a Director of Strategy for a Fortune 500 company.
Jon Lock – Co-founder
Jon attended Northwestern University, where he was a Ford Dean’s Scholar. After three years at Northwestern, Jon graduated with a degree in Biomedical Engineering. After Northwestern, Jon was a manager with the strategy consultancy Marakon Associates. He is currently pursuing a joint MBA and JD degree from Northwestern University.
Board of Advisors
Spiro Maroulis, PhD
Spiro Maroulis is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Social Enterprise and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Ford Center for Global Citizenship at the Kellogg School of Management. He received his B.S.E from Duke University, M.P.P. from Harvard University, and Ph.D. from Northwestern University.
His research addresses problems involved with understanding the relationship between individual and collective behavior. This includes investigating why strategic initiatives and change efforts so often provoke resistance and unanticipated responses. Much of his current work examines these issues in the context of understanding why it is so difficult for troubled schools and school districts to improve.
He is designing and teaching a course on entrepreneurship in the education sector this spring.
Cyrus Patel
Cyrus attended Cornell University, majoring in Political Science. After Cornell, Cyrus worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers for four years, before returning to Northwestern/Kellogg for his MBA. After Kellogg, Cyrus worked at Marakon Associates, progressing from Consultant to Manager. Cyrus is currently the VP of Strategy for Meritas, a private-equity backed global network of college preparatory schools.
Brandon Labrum
Brandon attended Brigham Young University, where he majored in Business Administration. After BYU, Brandon worked as a management and strategy consultant, first with L.E.K. Consulting, and then with Marakon Associates. Brandon is currently a Vice President at the private equity firm Sterling Partners, which concentrates many of its investments in the private education and test preparation space.
Joanna Stroncek
Joanna attended Northwestern University, where she majored in Economics. After Northwestern, she worked as a management consultant. She is currently an MBA student at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. For her summer internship, she developed a school support model for the Autonomous Schools Department of Chicago Public Schools.
Our Tutors
The MyGuru team consists of “Expert Tutors” who primarily drive our test prep solution packages, “Senior” tutors who are often PhDs, certified teachers, or former instructors at the large test prep or tutoring firms, and our base team of tutors, all of whom have degrees from the most respected universities in the U.S., multiple years of tutoring experience, and strong communication skills.
