BrainPOP Company Culture: Where Innovation Explodes
At BrainPOP, knowledge is powerful — but it’s also innovative, creative and essential. As a learning resource company supporting core and supplemental subjects, BrainPOP is dedicated to helping young learners reach their full potential. “Connecting with kids and meeting them where they are will always be at the heart of what we do,” said Chief Creative Officer Mike Watanabe. Today, BrainPOP’s platform reaches about 25 million students annually. And just like the students they strive to help, every employee is also empowered to pursue their own growth — whatever that looks like. “Your work will not only be seen,” Watanabe said. “It will help grow the platform upon which we empower kids to shape the world around and within them.”
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At a glance
01
ASPIRING SUPERSTARS
Many of BrainPOP’s characters are voiced by their very own BrainPOPers.
02
RELAX AND RECHARGE
The company offers a generous flexible PTO policy: On average, BrainPOPers take 20 days of vacation per year.
03
SHAPING THE FUTURE
BrainPOP has a presence in 77% of U.S. school districts.
04
ROOTED IN DIVERSITY
BrainPOP regularly hosts engaging DEI events and support sessions to make spaces for all employees — and represent diversity in its products.
Featured employees
COHESIVE COMMUNICATION
The best tech tool? Working together.
According to Michael Gi, or “MKG” as he’s known to his teammates, the most valuable tool in his tech stack isn’t always a tangible one. “Communication: Any tool that lets me coordinate with teammates everywhere is one that I love — think Slack, Loom and Figjam,” he said. As a leader, MKG understands that alignment is essential to team health, and it’s that same focus that has allowed his team to recently implement a new organization and tracking structure to scale more easily, together. “We’re passionate about our work and care tremendously about each other!”
Michael “MKG” Gi
Associate Director, Project Management
We’re not afraid to have fun and inject some personality into our everyday work.
On a mission
Leadership through company values
Lisa Subrizi
Director of Product Management (Platform)
Company values pop up every day in Lisa Subrizi’s role as a technology and product leader. BrainPOP’s work values are etched on a wooden cube that sits on her desk for easy reference, a nod to the building blocks of company culture. “I tend to rotate it to the one I feel I need the biggest reminder of at the time,” she says.
Values are also a powerful force for alignment when collaborating as a team. “Calling out
when we are (or aren’t) embodying our work values can be a playful way to remind each other of them. Stopping to consider, ‘Do we know the goal?’ or ‘Are we creating simplicity?’ can be a helpful reframe or celebration when we manage to do so naturally!”
In addition to her values-driven leadership, Subrizi notes that everyone plays a role in elevating and celebrating company values. “Our annual peer-nominated BrainPOP Work Value Awards are a great way to highlight individuals across the organization who embody them.”
FREEDOM TO EXPLORE
Transforming creative expression into confidence
As chief creative officer, Mike Watanabe knows that leading a team of creatives requires a nuanced approach. “We all know what it’s like to not understand something, to feel lost or behind,” he said. “Everyone has to know why we do what we do — and for us, that’s turning confusion into confidence.” By intentionally making room within team culture to celebrate creative points of view, Watanabe is driven to help his employees’ work shine on their own terms. “This keeps our solutions novel, and the spark of curiosity makes it worth the extra time it takes to allow for a diversity of approaches.”
Mike Watanabe
Chief Creative Officer
I can look at each member of the creative team and think of the positive directions they’ve pulled us in, how they’ve made us all more reflective, more clever, more eloquent and more empathetic.
