Family has been central to Spotlight’s approach since our launch nearly seven years ago. We three founders placed family at the core of everything we did when we started the company; today, our personalized reports speak to educators and students, but our largest user group is families.

A couple of weeks ago, Spotlight joined a new family — a much larger one.

When companies are acquired, they’re often said, however euphemistically, to be “joining a new family”. After months of tough negotiations around terms and dollars, suddenly they’re a happy family, living peacefully in the same corporate home. Of course, business lore is rife with examples of…family dysfunction.

However, after what indeed were months of discussion (and at times debate), we feel that we’ve joined the Pearson family. Like any family, we’ll have our differences, but like a healthy, thriving one, we share a common mission: serving students, families, and educators, particularly those from less affluent or less highly educated communities.

We’ve been warmly welcomed by new “siblings”, including a Senior Equity Advisor, dedicated entirely to ensuring that Pearson approaches its work with eyes open to diversity, inclusion and equity. Of course we’ve discussed how we can rapidly grow our newly shared business, bringing video reporting and college and career guidance to millions of new students, and always doing with an emphasis on achieving our newly shared mission.

We’re just two weeks in; it’s very early. But so far, we feel like we’ve found a warm new home.