Alan Cardenas Is the Newly Minted SVP and GC for Educationally Minded Coursera

When Alan Cardenas announced he had been promoted to Coursera’s executive staff as the company’s new general counsel, the moment was made even more special by the context. His mother, a Cuban political refugee, and his father, an Ecuadorian immigrant, had met shortly after arriving in the United States. All they wanted was to raise a family and provide better opportunities for their children than they might have had in their respective native countries. In only one generation, their son became a senior vice president, general counsel (GC), and company secretary for a publicly traded company.

“I recognize that it took a hundred generations before me to make me the person I am today,” Cardenas says. “There will be a hundred generations after me. When I think about my life and my career, I feel a sense of stewardship when it comes to leading the next generation of leaders, including Latinx leaders.”

The attorney distinguished himself by, among other roles, serving as lead counsel for Siemens and then as head of US corporate legal for Siemens Energy. He transitioned to join Coursera in 2021, initially serving as its vice president and deputy general counsel before his promotion to his current position in May 2023.

Cardenas is a seasoned multi-industry legal executive with rich leadership experience, known for his expertise in managing a diverse array of legal functions, empowering people, and leveraging technology. His unique ability to imbue cultural intelligence within legal departments has consistently improved their functionality and performance. Committed to developing the full potential of every individual, he is highly skilled at nurturing diverse and unique talent.

In many ways, Coursera is the perfect organization for Cardenas to help lead. Founded in 2012, the global online learning platform offers free and low-cost learning content in the thousands from over 300 universities and companies. In 2021, the company announced its initial public offering (IPO). Cardenas was sought out for his public company experience, his strong corporate and regulatory background, and his experience leading legal functions for growing large international companies. However, there are a multitude of other reasons why the GC was the right man for the job.

It starts with his immigrant parents.

“I have vivid memories of when I was younger, and my parents were going to night school to get their degrees,” Cardenas remembers. “From an early age, that experience instilled a passion for education and a commitment to progress. It’s the way I’ve tried to raise my children. At Coursera, I now have the opportunity to foster that sense of community, including amongst our Latinx employees and future leaders.”

It wasn’t just the company’s mission that lured Cardenas to Coursera. The public company was fresh off an IPO and looking to ramp up its legal department with skilled operators who can help a newly public company pursue growth and fulfill its obligation as a public benefit corporation. For Cardenas, it was an opportunity to drive growth in a company early on in its journey.

In Cardenas, Coursera has found a leader who knows how to leverage technological innovations for the betterment of his department. The GC is quick to pull up studies by the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Business, MIT, and Boston Consulting Group that highlight artificial intelligence’s potential to redefine how legal departments of the future will operate.

“I’ve read studies that have demonstrated that people using AI were able to complete twelve percent more tasks on average, 25 percent faster, and the quality was 40 percent higher than the control group,” Cardenas explains. “You look at those studies, and you have to understand that generative AI is going to have a fundamental impact on the knowledge worker. In the past, we’ve focused so much on making routine or manual labor more efficient, but this is a first where we’re talking about something that will forever alter the roles of knowledge workers.”

That is not to sound alarm bells, the GC explains. “It still all starts with people—the individuals who will utilize and leverage AI, particularly generative AI.” AI isn’t going to replace lawyers, but lawyers who utilize AI are going to replace lawyers who don’t. Cardenas says his job is not immune to that reality, nor does he think it should be. He considers it absolutely critical to continue searching for opportunities and functions that evolve with AI and discover how global legal and compliance organizations can benefit from those advances.

Cardenas says Coursera is an ideal organization in which to drive this kind of evolution. People turn to Coursera because they want to learn and advance their skills, further their education, and make themselves better prepared for future opportunities. The GC has the same goal for his people: to enhance their abilities and make them even more ready for a rapidly evolving work environment.

“Coursera is on the frontlines of so many groundbreaking innovations in learning and education,” Cardenas says. “We didn’t have these kinds of tools when I was young, but now we can use them to help people adapt to whatever seismic shifts we see come about.”

At the same time, Cardenas is also inherently conscious of the kind of innovation that AI will never provide—a multi-ethnic Latino who can be the business-savvy general counsel, developer of talent, and source of inspiration for anyone who can see themselves in the lawyer’s career trajectory to date.

“I always try to help people become the best version of themselves,” Cardenas says. “That isn’t just because it’s in the best interest of the company—it also gives me joy and feels like the right thing to do.”

For those that Cardenas is able to encounter early in their career journeys, the general counsel has great advice: “Don’t be scared of your own greatness,” the GC says. “I don’t want you to get to my level. I want you to exceed my level. With a learn, change, and grow mindset, you can become as great as you are destined to be.”