From English Literature Teacher to Head of Global Training in Vietnam in Tech

Aaron Horwath

From Teaching to Training

At 26-years old, Aaron Horwath has had a pretty amazing journey from teaching to training so far in his career. He has weaved his way from Portland, as a fresh-faced college graduate with a degree in Education, to New York to Hong Kong before settling for the last three years in Vietnam working for an international technology company.

Aaron has done what many teachers wish to do, but aren’t sure is possible. He has made the leap from traditional teaching to the private sector. So what does a journey from traditional education to working in the private sector look like?

Aaron’s Teaching Background

Aaron graduated with his Secondary Education degree (with a focus in English Literature) from the University of Portland in 2014.

After graduation, he went to New York to coach tennis in the Hamptons. While coaching tennis in the Hamptons, he overheard one of the tennis player’s parents talking about their family looking for a live-in English tutor. Aaron mentioned that he would love to tutor the family’s two sons. Shortly after, he moved to Hong Kong with the family to be their live-in English tutor and tennis coach.

Aaron’s Transition into Training

Aaron left Hong Kong after locating a hospitality training position in Vietnam. Vietnam proved to be a bit more of a culture shock to him than his initial move to Hong Kong.

After eight months of teaching hospitality English, he applied for a position at Pixelz Inc. Pixelz Inc. was a growing international technology company specializing in on-demand retouching for e-commerce photos with offices in Vietnam. He was initially turned down for the position. Undeterred, he emailed the CEO who put Aaron in touch with the VP of Operations for an interview. He was hired soon after.

Aaron’s instructional design work at Pixelz Inc. began with Pixelz Next Step program. Designed by Aaron and Pixelz’ Human Resource team, Pixelz Next Step is Pixelz internal professional development program. Pixelz Next Step teaches staff soft skills like leadership, communication, and English in preparation for higher positions within the company. To date, over 60 Pixelz staff have graduated from the program.

After designing Next Step, Aaron was promoted to be the Head of Global Training. He then built, scaled, and now operates Pixelz Academy. Pixelz Academy is an internal eLearning platform (similar to Lynda.com) used to train over 1,000 staff in technical Photoshop skills. With his direction, Pixelz Academy has provided over 2,000 skills upgrades to Pixelz staff in three countries. It has enabled Pixelz as a company to scale its operations to meet their growing business demands.

Aaron’s Advice to Teachers

After a few years in the workforce, Aaron realized that studying education and spending over 1,000 hours teaching students in the classroom had equipped him with a unique skill set. Aaron found that the skills that all good teachers have been far rarer and valued by the private sector than he had ever imagined. Just to name a few:

Refined communication skills
Ability to synthesize complex information and present it in an accessible way
High Emotional IQ required to manage a room full of students

“Teachers need to realize,” Aaron explained to me, “that the skills they have honed, all of those critical soft skills they use every day, are incredibly hard to develop in adults. Private companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to figure out ways to develop those skills in their staff.

“What teachers need to realize is that learning technical skills is the easy part. There are a million online classes to teach you coding or instructional design software or other technical skills. The ability to communicate effectively, to lead and manage a group of people are really difficult skills to develop. These are skills that teachers use every single day to do their job effectively. Those are the skills that teachers who want to make the leap into the private sector need to sell to potential employers.”

“Schools of education are full of untapped talent.”

A Few Accomplishments

Published an article “Schools of Education: Pools of Talent Sitting in Wait“
Featured on Forbes for his website, 12 Hour Difference, about his experiences overseas
Maintains the Letters To A Young Professional blog
Runs a podcast Chronicles Abroad

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