Lake Union - Skills copilot for Microsoft 365

Our Vision

We envisage the idea of 'intelligent' organizations where roles & skills are fluid and reactive to the needs and goals of the business. This means that the definitions, data, and analytics around roles & skills cannot be siloed in the HR department (or external systems) but must be surfaced to employees when and where they work.

We contend that adding expensive, complex, time-consuming skills-management software to your organizational stack is NOT the answer, quite simply because that's not where your employees work.

Our position is that most organizations which use Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams already have all the capabilities they need — they just need to tie it together and unleash it! Keeping the key elements of your people (along with their roles and their skills) inside the Microsoft 365 ecosystem also avoids security risks and administration headaches, and enables you to make critical cost savings, elevate productivity, and implement great employee experiences.

Our Mission

At Skills Copilot, we are ALL about skills. Our mission is to:

Help organizations get skills out of spreadsheets, documents, and PDFs.
Get skills working with employees — and employees working with skills!
Ensure organizations can respond to the ever-changing skills landscape.
Align training & skills initiatives with organizational and employee goals.
Surface roles, skills, goals, and training where employees work — in Microsoft 365!

Furthermore—unlike expensive/complex/time-consuming solutions—we make it our mission to avoid becoming another item on your long 'To-Do' list. We make sure your skills data is ready for you before you even touch our software.

Our Leadership Team

Skills Copilot is an initiative for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, and requires leadership skills in software development, app building, and program management in the world of skills and training. To meet these demands, we are delighted to present our leadership team, all of whom have very deep backgrounds at Microsoft HQ (and other leading skills-oriented organizations), including expertise in program management, partner initiatives, and building enterprise-grade software solutions.

Colin Klein

Managing Director

Colin is an experienced product executive who has forged his skills at multinationals like Microsoft and Bertelsmann, and startups like EdCast and TrainingTek. He has designed, engineered, and brought to market solutions focused on eLearning, eBooks, virtual labs, business intelligence, training content development and content marketplaces. As a business and product owner, he has managed strategic partnerships with such reputable companies as Microsoft, AWS, Google, IBM, LinkedIn Learning, Pearson, Mercer, Wiley, Skillsoft, CompTIA, Harvard Business Publishing, Udemy, GO1, Linux Foundation, and many others. Colin's focus is always on driving value for customers and delivery partners, and we are delighted that he is managing the launch of the Skills Copilot program for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365.

When he's not actively being the 'voice of the customer' at Skills Copilot, Colin can be found taking long walks in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and cheering on his favorite sports teams, Liverpool FC and the Detroit Red Wings. He is an avid sci-fi reader and film buff, and has been studying the human contemplative experience for many moons now. He resides in Kirkland, Washington with his family.

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Martin Harwar

Product Director

Martin earned his spurs speaking for the SharePoint and Office 365 product teams at international conferences, and he created many of the professional SharePoint and Visual Studio training courses for Microsoft HQ. He was the author of the first ever developer's guide for Office 365, and he received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for seven consecutive years. He drives the product management, design, architecture, development, and go-to-market strategies of software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms — specifically those with a focus on the HR-Tech, Ed-Tech, natural language processing, generative AI, and document processing sectors — and he has taken two SaaS companies from inception, through launches in the Microsoft ecosystem, and on to successful exits by way of trade acquisitions. Martin is a published author and has written two books — one technical, and one business-oriented.

When he's not creating and managing software, you can find Martin cycling across fascinating places such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Kenya, and Tanzania. He has a two-year-old springer spaniel called Rusty, and two lovely children who all conspire to keep him from the serious training required for his next cycling goal!

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Our Vision and Mission