Utah Business proudly presents this year’s cohort of our Leaders of the Year award. These 12 honorees represent accomplishments of Utah’s business community in 2024 and were selected by the Utah Business editorial team.
Steve Daly
CEO | Instructure
In 2020, Steve Daly had achieved notable success. Having scaled three software companies, overseen 26 acquisitions and accomplished multiple exits worth billions over a career that spanned nearly three decades, he was retired.
But when the board of directors at Instructure Holdings asked Daly for the second time if he’d join the company as CEO, he said yes. Instructure’s mission — “to elevate student success, amplify the power of teaching, and inspire everyone to learn together” — compelled him. “A lot of tech companies want to change the world,” Daly says. “This is a place where you actually can.”
Instructure makes Canvas, a market-leading learning management system used by students and teachers around the world. Under Daly’s tenure, the company reached a major milestone in November: It was acquired by investment firms KKR and Dragoneer for $4.8 billion, one of the largest acquisitions of a Utah-based company and one of the nation’s largest education technology deals in years.
“We call it our Rocky moment,” Daly says, referring to the movie where boxer Rocky Balboa triumphantly runs up the stairs. “We’re in shape, and we’ve got an investor who wants to go on this journey with us.”
By all accounts, the journey ahead portends a revolutionary shift in learning and teaching on a global scale. For Daly, the path to its helm wasn’t initially obvious. Early in life, he studied mechanical engineering at BYU. He returned for his MBA, convinced he wanted to start an engineering firm. But as he witnessed the rapid rise in personal computing, Daly switched gears. He set his sights on Intel and, in an early indicator of his persistence and drive, interviewed six different times before landing a job on the seventh try.
Daly’s career spanned flourishing runs at software companies including Soronti, Avocent Corporation, LANDESK and, most recently, Ivanti, where he was CEO for 10 years. But he attributes much of his success to what took place behind the positive earnings reports and glowing press releases.
“The most valuable part of my whole life journey,” he says, “has been learning how to deal with failure. It’s happened a ton.” Some moments still stand out: getting fired from Intel, botching a board meeting years ago with investors and trying to lead a team of executives who wanted to quit.
If Daly draws from his failures, he clearly draws from his wins, too. That combination gives him a unique ability to spot patterns and build sustainable growth. This ability will be tested again as he continues to steer Instructure toward a big deliverable — $1 billion in revenue by 2028.
Mostly, that will come from onboarding new users. With over a third of all K-12 and nearly half of all university and college students in the U.S. and Canada using Canvas, Daly says, there’s plenty of room to grow. He anticipates significant growth internationally, too, where Instructure’s market share sits below 10 percent, he estimates.
While the digital transformation of education is well underway, Daly says, “We’re in the early innings.” And he’s excited. “I see a huge opportunity for us to connect educators to learners and learners to opportunities in a rapidly changing landscape.”