In this exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, we speak with Corinne Hua, the Chief Financial Officer of Thinkific, a leader in the online learning industry. With over 20 years of financial experience, Corinne has played a pivotal role in scaling Thinkific, a platform trusted by over 35,000 creators and businesses. She discusses the strategic rebranding of Thinkific, the company’s unique financial strategies for helping SMBs succeed, and the importance of financial leadership in building trust. Corinne also sheds light on how Thinkific leverages technology and data-driven insights to empower small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the fast-evolving world of digital learning and e-commerce. She shares her insights on scaling operations, embracing AI, and remaining adaptable to succeed in this rapidly changing digital landscape.
Corinne is the Chief Financial Officer of Thinkific and brings with her over 20 years experience working as a senior financial executive. Corinne’s role is to provide leadership, strategic recommendation, direction and management of the finance, accounting, reporting, controls and legal team.
Thinkific recently underwent a significant rebrand. From your perspective as CFO, what were the key drivers behind this transformation, and how do you see it shaping the company’s future in the online learning industry?
This rebrand was about sharpening our focus and scaling with purpose. Thinkific has always been committed to empowering businesses through education, but the landscape has changed. Today, our customers are building full-fledged learning businesses: academies, training hubs, certification programs, often with recurring revenue models and deep community engagement.
To support that, we first focused on who we serve best: training companies, academies, experts and businesses that want to teach their customers as a way to grow. Then, we invested in the tools and features they need, things like AI advance their speed to impact, build engagement through a thriving community, and better systems, analytics and commerce tools to help them grow and scale.
This rebrand is more than a new look. It reflects the direction we’re heading as a company by helping our customers succeed in a more competitive online learning space. It positions Thinkific to grow alongside them and stay at the forefront of this fast-changing industry.
With your extensive background in scaling companies, what unique financial strategies or frameworks have you implemented at Thinkific to support both rapid growth and long-term sustainability for small and medium-sized businesses using your platform?
A key area is B2B sales and recurring subscriptions. We’ve made it easier for customers to sell bulk course access, team licenses, and white-labeled training – all of which lead to larger deal sizes and a smoother experience for their clients. We’ve also enabled better subscription management and analytics to improve the durability of their learning revenue. Features like Group Orders, automated enrollment, and invoicing help reduce manual work and support scale.
We also guide customers in building a stronger, more efficient sales process, from mapping the buyer journey to qualifying leads and applying value-based pricing. These steps help them close better deals faster and tailor offerings to meet the needs of different business clients.
By investing in scalable tools and revenue strategies, we’re helping users build growing, resilient businesses. Our role is to make that growth easier and more sustainable, so our customers can focus on what they do best: delivering meaningful education.
Thinkific is trusted by over 35,000 customers and has helped creators earn billions. What role does financial leadership play in building trust and delivering value to both your customers and internal teams?
At Thinkific, financial leadership goes beyond managing numbers, it’s about building trust through clear, responsible decisions that create long-term value for both our customers and our team.
We serve a wide range of businesses: subject matter experts, training companies, and businesses committed to educating their customers. These are people building real businesses through learning, and they rely on us to be a stable, reliable partner. My role is to ensure we’re investing in the right areas, tools, features, and infrastructure, that help them grow sustainably and confidently.
Trust starts with listening. One thing I do is host local customer dinners whenever I’m travelling. This gives me the opportunity to connect with customers, to understand their goals and their challenges. That helps us make thoughtful, transparent choices that balance financial discipline with empathy.
Internally, this means creating clarity around how and why we invest. Externally, it means empowering our customers to scale without unnecessary risk. At every level, we aim to lead with purpose and build relationships rooted in respect and support.
Financial leadership at Thinkific is about making sure we’re in the strongest position to help our customers succeed — not just today, but for the long run.
As the online education sector becomes increasingly competitive, how does Thinkific leverage technology and data-driven insights to empower SMBs to succeed and stand out in the digital marketplace?
We’re at a turning point in online education. With AI driving an explosion of content, what sets successful businesses apart isn’t just what they teach, it’s how they deliver it. At Thinkific, we empower SMBs to stand out by helping them create personalized, human-centered learning experiences that go beyond generic content.
Everyone learns differently, whether through live sessions, video, reading, or Q&A. Our platform is designed to support all of those formats, so our customers can meet learners where they are. But content alone isn’t enough. That’s why we’re building tools that blend structured learning with community-driven engagement, from embedded discussions to private collaboration spaces, and helping students learn from each other, in addition to great courses.
We also help our customers keep their learners engaged with smart tools like automated notifications, intelligent landing pages, and flexible subscriptions that drive retention and repeat business.
As our customers grow, we take care of the operational complexity, from managing taxes and invoicing to offering self-serve seat management and scalable B2B features. Our goal is to make it easy to deliver high-quality education at scale, without the growing pains, so they can focus on impact, not admin.
Finally, what advice would you offer to Canadian small and medium-sized businesses looking to scale their operations, especially in the fast-evolving world of digital learning and e-commerce?
My advice to Canadian SMBs is to embrace the pace of change — especially when it comes to technology. We’re in a moment of rapid evolution in digital learning and e-commerce, and tools like AI can be a powerful advantage when used intentionally. It can handle repetitive tasks, freeing up time for business owners and teams to focus on what matters most.
With AI transforming every part of our lives, people are actively seeking trusted voices to help them navigate this new environment. That presents a real opportunity for businesses to step into that role and lead with insight, provide clarity, and build trust through education.
For those in the learning space, this is especially exciting. There’s a growing demand for flexible, accessible education, from training to certifications to skill-building. Technology now makes it easier than ever to reach learners, monetize expertise, and scale impact across borders.
The key is to stay focused on the value you offer, and use tools like AI to amplify that impact. Start small, experiment, and evolve. The businesses that adapt with purpose and keep their customers’ needs at the center will be the ones that thrive.
