Gary Weiss, Career Certified CEO and Board Member: “We are always evaluating the need for new products for our existing audiences based on industry and market conditions, and continually in a cycle of innovation on a handful of new products.”

Career Certified, headquartered in Denver, CO, stands as a beacon of excellence in multi-vertical career education. With a firm commitment to empowering professionals across regulated industries and careers in fields ranging from real estate to finance, Career Certified has established itself as a leader in delivering comprehensive, up-to-date training and exam preparation courses. The company’s genesis is rooted in personal inspiration, arising from the founder’s mother, a single mother determined to succeed against all odds. This personal drive was the catalyst for creating the company’s flagship real estate education brand, The CE Shop, in 2005. Under the leadership of CEO and Board Member Gary Weiss, Career Certified has continually built on its core mission: to make purpose attainable for as many careers as possible. Initially focusing on perfected real estate industry education, the company expanded its reach to include additional professional verticals. In early 2022, the strategic acquisition of Mbition, an online real estate school combined with Stringham Schools, and AHIT, a home inspection training leader, signaled Career Certified’s expansion into other key markets. Later that same year, the acquisition of Amber Book, which provides ARE^® exam preparation and career lifecycle tools for aspiring architects, and A.D. Banker, a provider of insurance and securities education, further bolstered the company’s diverse portfolio.

Continuing its growth trajectory throughout 2024, Career Certified broadened its influence by integrating AnalystPrep, a team renowned for its exam preparation services for candidates pursuing the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA^®), Financial Risk Manager (FRM^®), and other competitive credentials. The addition of My Contractor’s License at the end of 2024, which offers tailored online learning for general and electrical contracting, further exemplifies the company’s dedication to comprehensive professional development. With an ongoing vision of being the premier multi-vertical career education provider, Career Certified remains steadfast in its commitment to delivering relevant, real-world training that meets the evolving needs of today’s learners.

Driven by a spirit of innovation and commitment to lifelong learning, Career Certified continues to refine its curriculum and expand its offerings. The company’s strategic growth and forward-thinking leadership promise a bright future for aspiring professionals nationwide with dedication.

In conversation with Gary Weiss, CEO and Board Member of Career Certified

Your core values emphasize being “customer focused” and “committed to improving.” How do these principles directly shape the design of your training programs, such as adaptive learning tools or flexible pathways for burnt-out professionals switching careers?

In an age of innovation created and absorbed at faster rate than ever seen before, paired with a tech savvy workforce entering the field younger and younger, we have to look at how best to accommodate all learning styles and all levels of technology prowess in one seamless experience. There are a few things that seem to be consistent: our students want to be able to access their education on-the-go and at the hour that makes sense for them. Many students are squeezing in the launch of a new career while still juggling their current one, along with raising a family, and may only have late night hours to focus on their education and next steps. We have to provide a no-risk safe landing spot for these career switchers.

Career Certified has rapidly expanded through acquisitions like Mbition, Amber Book, and AnalystPrep. How do these acquisitions align with your mission to “start with the person” and ensure cohesive integration across diverse industries?

We first evaluate our growth potential, both organic and inorganic, on whether we have the right data about the audience(s) we can serve, which is very much about starting with the person. We’re the foundation from which the professional can be built. With a vision to make purpose attainable, we do a deep dive into the audience to ensure we can deliver materials that will elevate their success throughout the lifecycle of that career.

The CE Shop Foundation has donated over $1.6M to fight childhood hunger and support education. How does this philanthropic ethos tie into Career Certified’s broader mission, and what metrics do you use to measure community impact alongside business growth? 

Giving back is one of our Core Values. Simply put, hungry people don’t learn or retain new information well. So, if we’re dedicated to education and growth, it’s a natural step to ensure the foundation of learning is first met if we’re going to have any impact on communities. This blog post contains a video that very clearly connects the dots between feeding children and the impact it has on education and the future of our country’s next generation of leaders: https://www.theceshop.com/agent-essentials/blog/the-ce-shop-celebrates-its-10th-anniversary

We keep our Foundation efforts running separate, but parallel to our coursework, so that we can have a team of focused people evaluating new ways to engage our colleagues, engage our partners and customers, and innovative ways to educate and access the general public, which happens through events and public relations. We set giving targets each year and look to round them out by allowing colleagues to bring new ideas to the table and tell us about the non-profits they want to also recognize in their community. We are a virtual-first company, therefore we have people spread across the country with varying interests and we’re always looking for a way to accommodate. We also have an employee donation matching program to support in this way.

What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

Everyone at Career Certified is here to empower students. The heartbeat of the company is very much centered around impacting individuals and communities in profound and lasting ways. We are always evaluating the need for new products for our existing audiences based on industry and market conditions, and continually in a cycle of innovation on a handful of new products. On a parallel  track, we have a robust development team evaluating new industries we can conquer organically or via acquisition, and we constantly synthesize information on market reports to use all these input points to guide strategy. And yes, soon, there will be multiple exciting announcements.  In five years, I suspect we’ll have some added ways to learning that align to global technology trends, we will have added possibly 20-30 more careers to our education options, and this type of growth is the collective vision we share internally.

Meet the leader behind the success of Career Certified

Gary Weiss heads Career Certified as CEO & Board Member, bringing decades of experience in growing and transforming cutting-edge organizations. Just a few of his most notable professional accomplishments include Executive for one of the most successful exits in eLearning at Vector Solutions, ushering in double-digit growth as the Chief Operating Officer at Aspen Technology, leading the Cloud Transformation at OpenText, and leading CA Technologies to market leadership in the Security Industry as a Senior Vice President. He began his career as one of the first Sales Reps at a startup company called RSA and helped them grow to become one of the leaders in the security industry. Gary is passionate about his family consisting of his wife and four children, sports, philanthropy and sustainability, and currently resides in Tampa, Florida.

“Many students are squeezing in the launch of a new career while still juggling their current one, along with raising a family, and may only have late night hours to focus on their education and next steps. We have to provide a no-risk safe landing spot for these career switchers.”