Richard Levin to take the reins at Coursera.

Richard Levin (pictured), who stepped down as president of Yale University in June, will next month become chief executive of Coursera, a US-based provider of online academic courses reportedly backed by three universities.

Levin had been an adviser to Coursera since January and his recruitment as CEO will see the company’s co-founders and Stanford University professors take on new roles. Andrew Ng will become chairman and lead the company’s development of massive open online course (MOOC) pedagogy, as well as help Levin develop Coursera’s presence in China.

The other co-founder, Daphne Koller, will become president as well as helping Coursera’s partnerships with universities.

Lila Ibrahim, who has served as president since August 2013, will assume the role of chief business officer, responsible for business development, growth, marketing and finance.

Koller and Ng, co-founders of Coursera, in their blog said Levin had worked on:Yale’s visionary foray into online education, first in partnership with Stanford and Oxford [in 2000], and later with Open Yale Courses [in 2007]. He also played a key role in furthering Yale’s partnership with Coursera, which was announced in May 2013.”

Coursera’s backers are reported to include three universities already partnered with the two-year-old start-up to offer courses. Coursera has raised $85m in venture backing.

In November, Coursera added a further $20m to its $43m series B round, bringing that round to $63m.

Backers in the latest round include venture capital firms GSV Capital, Learn Capital Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), angel investor Yuri Milner, the development organisation World Bank and its private sector member International Finance Corporation and education provider Laureate Education, which has a partnership with the US-based Thunderbird School of global Management to help it expand its executive education and online programmes.

Separately, Coursera’s main competitor, EdX, a non-profit started by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also said Wendy Cebula, a former executive at the online office supply and marketing company Vistaprint, would become its president and chief operating officer. Anant Agarwal, the founding president, will become CEO.