How Higher Ed Leadership Needs To Borrow From Business - Without Selling Its Soul

My experience in executive leadership spanning both higher education and the corporate world, and now building advanced AI software for enrollment, has given me a unique perspective on what I believe is a critical gap, and opportunity for growth, for higher ed leadership. 

Here's what I see:

Roughly 37 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs come from sales or marketing backgrounds, yet a cursory view of a cross-section of higher education institutions reveals that probably fewer than 5 percent of college and university presidents have previously held senior roles in enrollment or marketing.

This isn't surprising.

Higher education and the corporate world have very different missions, different values, different governance structures and different leadership traditions. In academia, deep experience with curriculum, faculty governance, research and institutional mission has historically shaped the path to the presidency.

And for good reason. Academic leadership plays a critical role in maintaining the integrity and purpose of the institution. But the market around higher education has changed. And in this environment, academic credibility alone may not be enough.

Today, presidents are being asked to navigate declining demographics, challenging finances, increased competition, and rising skepticism about the value of a degree. Students and families are asking harder questions, and the answers can no longer be rooted only in tradition. The institutions that succeed going forward will be those that blend academic leadership with strategic guidance informed by market understanding.

This isn't a call for colleges to turn into corporations. It's a call for balance. Because while higher education's mission is unique, it can still take meaningful lessons from the way high-performing, highly adaptable companies operate in complex, competitive environments.

The New Reality

Colleges and universities are increasingly being evaluated through a new lens.

Where once reputation and campus experience carried the day, families now look for measurable return on investment. That includes job placement rates, earnings data, relevance of skills, and even how well the institution uses technology to support the student experience. These expectations are not abstract. They are reshaping how students choose where to enroll, and whether to enroll at all.

More fundamentally, the direct line between strategy, operational execution, and financial results is more critical than ever in higher education. While this is familiar territory for a CEO who has spent years leading teams deep in process improvement, cost of acquisition and volatile market dynamics, it's not as familiar territory for the university President who may have risen through the more common faculty governance and academic administration path.

Institutional leaders must be prepared to engage with this shift.

That means understanding which career fields are growing and how academic programs align with them. It means knowing how prospective students make decisions and how that decision process is changing, what they compare, and what messages move them to act. It means being fluent in how technology, particularly AI, can force-multiply not only learning, but also outreach, advising, and key institutional operational processes to deliver a more efficient institution. And it means being able to clearly articulate why the institution matters and why it is worth the investment with a defendable, winnable, data supported position.

These are not just questions to be presented on by the marketing and enrollment team in the next cabinet meeting. They are senior leadership questions. And they are central to institutional strategy and long term sustainability and competitiveness.

What Business Gets Right

For the Institution, there is something to learn from how leading companies think and operate. High-performing businesses organize themselves around how people make decisions about their product. Virtually every successful CEO deeply understands the nuances - and changing conditions - of their critical markets. The culture of that position mandates it. They are challenged in board, investor and analyst meetings to speak with both breadth and depth about the macro environment, the projected headwinds and opportunities and how their organization will respond to various changes in conditions.

Higher education doesn't need to adopt the commercial mindset wholesale. But it should be open to borrowing the parts that make sense.

That includes building the institution around the end to end student journey - including designing backwards from the ideal student outcome . This means moving faster, giving permission to fail, testing ideas, and learning in real time. It includes messaging that leads with clarity and relevance, not just tradition. And investing in a deeper understanding of a student's behavioral data and enrollment signals that can guide proactive decision making and enrollment (both new and existing) interventions.

The Path Forward

This isn't about replacing provosts with marketers. It is about recognizing that successful leadership in this era requires both academic insight and market fluency. Presidents do not need to come from enrollment or marketing backgrounds, but they must surround themselves with people who understand the student decision process, the realities of competition, and the strategies that actually move outcomes - and they must be prepared, as uncomfortable or unconventional as it may feel - to make themselves experts in their markets, their product, and its competitive positioning. Because if they don't, who will...?

Who To Watch

Some of the most innovative presidents I follow, like Scott Pulsipher at Western Governors University, Michael Crow at Arizona State University, and Kristin Sobolik at University of Missouri-St. Louis, successfully deploy core business concepts and market innovation without losing sight of the mission and the student. They demonstrate that it's possible to operate with a business mindset while staying true to higher education's core purpose. If you're interested in what this looks like in practice, and you're not following and listening to this group of leaders - this is a good place to start.

Higher education doesn't need to become something it's not. But it does need to evolve. The institutions that thrive will be led by leaders and teams that understand both what a college is and how students choose one, and why. That is the balance. And it's the balance that will determine which institutions move forward with strength, and which stay stuck in the past.