ACT Names Marten Roorda Next CEO

ACT has named Marten Roorda as its next chief executive officer. Roorda currently serves as chief executive officer of Cito, an international, not-for-profit test publishing company based in Arnhem, The Netherlands. He will replace Jon Whitmore, who is retiring this fall.

“When we said we would conduct a global search for our new CEO, we meant it,” said Carl Cohn, chair of the ACT Board of Directors. “Marten will bring an extraordinary reputation in assessment that literally spans the globe to his duties as ACT’s next leader.”

During his 12-year tenure at Cito, Roorda led the $100 million organization with 600 employees to international recognition for its work in learning analytics and adaptive testing. Roorda is also the longest-serving member of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) Board of Directors. During his ATP tenure, he was a founder of ATP Europe and ATP Asia.

“I’m thrilled to be joining ACT, such a highly respected and quality organization,” said Roorda. “Globally, the landscape of assessment is changing. There is a spirited debate about the meaning of testing for society. These changes offer organizations such as ACT opportunities to align the needs of their customers with the exciting innovations that are taking place in our field.”

“During my five years at ACT, two of our most important priorities have been internationalism and innovation,” said Whitmore. “With Marten Roorda’s selection, I’m pleased we will continue to move forward in these areas, while at the same time building on our unrivaled reputation for excellence in assessment.”

In 2007, Roorda led Cito in co-founding Kryterion, which offers online proctoring services. Kryterion, a full service provider of customizable assessment and certification products and services, has testing centers across the United States and around the world.

In 2013, Roorda also led Cito in co-founding OAT Technologies in Luxembourg. Its open source test platform has been adopted by organizations such as the United Nations, OECD/PISA (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Program for International Student Assessment), and PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers). Cito also recently launched Questify, a testing platform with users in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Roorda currently serves on boards for ROC Rijn Ijssel, a regional center for vocational and adult education, and Scholengroep Veluwezoom, a group of primary schools in The Netherlands, in addition to ATP.

Roorda holds a master’s degree in Dutch language and literature from Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Prior to joining Cito in 2002, he was managing director for training and development at Reed Elsevier, where he had also served as publishing director for its business information group. He previously worked for several firms in editing, publishing and journalism in The Netherlands.

Roorda will begin his duties as ACT’s new leader this fall.