Why Everyone’s Talking About These 8 Degreed Partners

Laura Etchalus de Macedo

Thursday, May 8th, 2025

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Solving today’s workforce challenges takes more than great tech. It takes the right learning ecosystem. For Degreed, that means partnering to operationalize skills—turning skill data into action, making learning measurable, and helping clients stay ahead of what’s next.

While the Degreed partner ecosystem includes a wide range of innovators, eight stand out for how they bring a skills-first strategy to life. Each played a visible role as a Degreed LENS 2025 sponsor. And importantly, each addresses a distinct and urgent workforce challenge.

From labor market insights to learning infrastructure, these partners help us turn vision into execution. Collectively, they embody the power of an integrated ecosystem—accelerating impact, removing friction, and driving measurable outcomes for every Degreed client.

Pearson: Future-Proofing Learning with Market Intelligence

Pearson brings together the power of its Faethm workforce analytics and its Credly digital credentialing. Combined with Degreed, these tools help organizations move from insight to execution—pinpointing future skill needs, delivering targeted development, and validating results in measurable ways.

At LENS, the Pearson executive breakfast roundtable, the Pearson session Future-Proofing HR: The Impact of AI and Emerging Technology, and other discussions showed how organizations can align learning with business goals, predict and proactively solve for skill gaps, make workforce development an executive-level initiative, and more. And in conversation after conversation, Pearson demonstrated how our partnership benefits talent leaders looking to scale outcomes-driven strategies.

The upshot? Connecting predictive intelligence with learning programs and verified achievement is a roadmap for transformation backed by proof of impact.“We really do work in a ton of different ways, and also integrate in a ton of different ways, with the the talent ecosystem across the whole skilling journey, which really starts with, ‘How do you plan for the future and the talent that you want in your organization?’” Melissa Matlins, Global Head of Workforce Solutions at Pearson, told the LENS audience.

Workday: Empowering Smarter Skills Development

The bi-directional Workday integration with Degreed Skills+ turns static skill data into a dynamic asset. How? By providing a seamless way to exchange, enrich and act on skill data across systems. Skill profiles stay up to date automatically. Learning progress feeds directly into talent systems. And business leaders gain clearer visibility into workforce capabilities—without relying on disconnected reports.

For shared clients like Citi and BP, this interoperability supports faster talent mobility, smarter workforce planning, less manual work, and a more agile approach to managing change. For HR IT teams, the Workday-Degreed integration eliminates data silos and reduces manual upkeep—ensuring more accurate skill visibility across talent systems.

The joint mainstage LENS session Maximizing Impact Together, featuring Workday and SAP SuccessFactors, delivered a standout moment. Panelists encouraged attendees to focus on impactful skills, embrace open tech partnerships, experiment, and boldly take next steps with AI.

“Whatever problem it is you’re trying to solve, have a plan, put it in place, document it,” said Michael Goldberg, Principal Outbound Product Manager at Workday. “What are the outcomes? What are the metrics? How are you going to measure that value? … Make it very clear who owns what, who’s responsible for what, and who are ultimate decision makers.”

Michael Goldberg, Principal Outbound Product Manager at Workday (left), Josh Gosliner, VP Product Strategy at SAP SuccessFactors (middle), and Ashley Gammie, VP Partnerships at Degreed (right),on the Degreed LENS 2025 main stage

CredSpark: Embedding Assessments to Personalize Learning

CredSpark moves skill measurement beyond theory and into action. By embedding assessments directly into the Degreed platform, CredSpark enables learning teams to continuously measure skill growth, personalize learning based on real-time performance, and generate data that feeds seamlessly into BI tools and reporting systems.

Credspark came to LENS with a clear message: For business leaders tasked with demonstrating program effectiveness, the company delivers the skill-level data needed to prove impact and align learning with business goals. The LENS welcome reception Credspark co-hosted with Degreed Key Account Directors drove the message home—providing an energizing kickoff.

Lightcast: Grounding Strategy in Labor Market Data

Lightcast brings real-time labor market intelligence into the heart of workforce strategy. Through its integration with Degreed, Lightcast helps organizations understand which skills are emerging, which are in demand, and how internal capabilities stack up against fast-changing industry needs.

At LENS, one question in particular from Lightcast resonated: If nearly half your industry’s skill requirements are about to change, wouldn’t you want to know how?

Ethena: Reinventing Compliance With Engaging Content

Ethena is proving that compliance training doesn’t have to feel like a checkbox exercise. Built on behavioral science and designed for meaningful employee engagement, Ethena content helps companies drive lasting behavior change, not just completions. 

Fully integrated with Degreed, Ethena makes it easy to deliver mandatory training in a way that makes it relevant to broader learning goals. 

At LENS, Ethena Chief People Officer Melanie Naranjo joined leaders from Ericsson and Truist for a dynamic panel on The AI & Skills-Powered Shift: Redefining Leadership. 

People respond to learning that’s approachable, Naranjo said. “Make it something empowering instead of something terrifying.”

LearnUpon: Connecting Formal Learning to Growth

LearnUpon brings structure and scalability to learning—especially in industries where compliance, certification, and audit readiness are non-negotiable. Through the LearnUpon LMS integration with Degreed, organizations can manage formal training requirements while still supporting personalized development. 

For learning teams, the unified approach reduces administrative burden while improving visibility into both regulatory and strategic learning goals. The result? A smarter, more balanced approach to compliance—one that drives accountability and growth.

Learnexus: Scaling Learning With On-Demand Talent

Learnexus gives organizations fast and flexible access to learning expertise they need—without the typical hiring delays or resource constraints. Whether it’s instructional designers, learning consultants, or project managers, Learnexus connects companies with vetted talent on demand, so critical initiatives don’t stall due to internal bandwidth.

The Learnexus message at LENS was clear: When you need support at scale, access to expert talent shouldn’t be a barrier.Ideal for HR and learning leaders facing headcount or bandwidth limits, Learnexus offers rapid access to vetted talent—accelerating program launches and transformation initiatives.

SPA: Benchmarking Progress With a Skills-First Lens

SPA (the Skill Professionals Association) is helping organizations navigate the shift to a skills-first strategy with clarity and confidence. Its newly introduced skills-first maturity framework gives organizations a structured way to benchmark capabilities, identify gaps, and prioritize what comes next.

At LENS 2025, the SPA executive track session Setting a New Workforce Standard: How Skills-First Certification Can Drive Results and Competitive Advantage challenged attendees to lead change, not just react to it—and framed skills as a strategic advantage.

Collaboration is a catalyst for change.

The message from our Degreed LENS sponsors was clear:

Workforce transformation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It isn’t about one tool, one vendor, or one idea. It’s about an ecosystem.

At LENS, these eight partners stood shoulder to shoulder with Degreed—to help organizations everywhere turn the talent they have into the talent they need. We’re proud to work alongside them and excited for what’s ahead!