Pearson Recognised as One of 2026’s Most Impactful Companies

Pearson has been named one of Time’s World’s Most Impactful Companies for 2026, in recognition for its role in shaping workforce readiness. 

This includes the work it is doing across product innovation, learning outcomes and financial performance.

“Proud to see Pearson recognised as one of TIME’s World’s Most Impactful Companies 2026,” says Lauren Gomez, Global Vice President of Human Resources at Pearson.

“What resonates most with me about this recognition is that it’s not simply about technology or innovation.

“It’s about helping people build the skills, confidence and capabilities they need to succeed in a rapidly changing world.

“Working closely with our teams across Saudi Arabia, I’m proud of seeing at first hand the role Pearson plays in supporting the Kingdom’s transformation journey through education, skills development, AI-powered learning and workforce readiness.”

Evolving learning outcomes

According to Pearson, there are three key approaches the company is taking to evolve learning outcomes – building tools to support learners, helping the workforce build up AI skills and working with businesses to help close skills gaps. 

Research conducted by Pearson in partnership with AWS found a disconnect between the pace of technological change and how prepared people feel for it, with 67% of learners, educators and employers saying that AI led change is happening very fast.

In fact, more than half of employers say that their biggest challenge is finding graduates with the right AI skills. 

To support this, Pearson has partnered with technology partners globally – such as AWS, Deloitte, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce and Servicenow. 

Its recently expanded partnership with Salesforce, for instance, has been created to help Salesforce anticipate emerging learning role needs and build new skills across the organisation through its CRM technologies.

“AI is reshaping how we work faster than most organizations can reskill their people, creating a growing gap that impacts productivity and performance,” said Vishaal Gupta, President of Enterprise Learning and Skills at Pearson, of the partnership.

“Our research shows that productivity gains come when learning keeps pace with AI adoption, building the skills, confidence and trust people need to work effectively alongside it."

Career progression at Pearson

Internally, Pearson has also been prioritising career growth for its employees.

Earlier this year, Allison Bebo, Chief Human Resources Officer of Pearson, introduced a new GPS navigation system for career progression, to give employees a more transparent career roadmap.

The new approach begins by identifying which skills are most essential to a role, and then tailors areas for individual growth by embedding learning opportunities into daily workflows. 

This helps employees better understand what they need to do to move forward – with Allison telling Racounteur the company’s previous approach was “outdated,” and left employees “blind” to their growth potential.

“It was a system built when Pearson was primarily a publishing company,” she said.

“But as we looked at where we wanted to go – becoming the world’s leading learning technology company – it became clear we didn’t have enough clarity around the roles we needed, whether that was in engineering, customer success or digital product.”