After more than 15 years helping to build early-stage companies focused on making work better, Anand Chopra-McGowan is joining Valence as Managing Director, Europe.

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My career has centered around improving how employees and managers learn and grow. I’ve focused in the last decade on building professional capabilities in critical domains at some of Europe’s most progressive employers. At General Assembly, my colleagues and I pioneered technology training focused on closing the digital skills gap based on the core premise that learning is strategic—at all levels. In my more recent role at Emeritus, we made elite business education more accessible and affordable by bringing business school courses online. By offering cohort-based learning, our students achieved the same level of participation, engagement, and completion as in-person courses. 

I learned so much from my colleagues and our students, yet over time I realized every learning program is up against a frustrating limit: it has to scale across different learners, languages, needs, and contexts. The most effective learning and development is personalized, and that’s hard to scale. Or at least it was before AI. 

AI is transforming workplace learning

It’s the holy grail of learning and development: affordable, personalized learning for every employee.
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- Anand Chopra-McGowan, Managing Director, Europe

In 2018, when Valence started their journey to help teams work better together, I began advising on the intricacies and nuances of the European market. In this capacity, I got to see the direct impact as European companies adopted Valence's original Team Tools product. For example, I distinctly remember hosting a client lunch event in Switzerland in 2022 for my last company. One guest was from a large client of Valence, and when she heard I was an advisor she couldn't stop talking about how valuable and effective their tools were. Word spread around the table, and soon everyone was talking about Valence.

What I see now, with Nadia, is the potential of generative AI to transform how we learn and grow on the job. Instead of an “appointment” dynamic, with coaches deployed by the hour at real expense or affordable general courses, the entire workforce gets access to a bespoke coach who knows them and gives them tailored advice. It’s the holy grail of learning and development: affordable, personalized learning for every employee. 

This is why I joined Valence, because I have seen their AI coach Nadia make learning available to every employee who needs it, when they need it most in a way I could only dream of a decade ago.

Valence’s mission in Europe

It’s a particularly exciting mission to take on in Europe. At first glance, this can seem like a tough place to do business. Growth is low, markets are fragmented into 44 countries, and companies with centuries of tradition can be slow to change and innovate.

But this discounts the extent to which European companies actually invest in their existing workforce and form more durable relationships when developing human capital.

Most importantly, Valence and Nadia’s AI superpowers are particularly well suited to win in Europe, where differences in language and culture are an everyday reality of work.

In just my first couple of weeks at Valence, I have seen Nadia launch successfully for a group of managers in Norway, help a team leader in France more effectively manage a change initiative across southern Europe, and support a large professional service firm’s return-to-office initiative across a dozen countries.

I know from experience that European companies have a massive appetite to bring the best of learning and the best of AI to their people. Yet I also know we’re in the early stages of figuring out how to do that well. 

That’s why I’m here at Valence. I’ve seen the journey so far and am convinced it’s the future of work. I’m looking forward to building that future together.

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Anand Chopra-McGowan is Managing Director, Europe at Valence.