Higher Education Leadership and Organizational Consulting
Good strategy needs an organization that can deliver it.
Even the best marketing strategy can fall apart when responsibilities are unclear, teams are stretched thin or decisions get tangled in institutional politics.
Solve helps colleges and universities strengthen marketing leadership, assess organizational structures, improve operations and navigate change. From organizational assessments and strategic planning to interim CMO services and AI implementation, we bring firsthand executive experience to the work of making higher education marketing and communications organizations more effective.
SERVICES
Where we focus
Sometimes the problem isn’t your strategy. It’s the organizational structure you’re asking to deliver it.
We conduct higher education marketing and communications organizational assessments to evaluate staffing, roles, reporting relationships, workflows, governance and decision-making. We help institutions identify what’s getting in the way and design more effective structures, clarify accountability and plan for organizational change.
When a marketing leader leaves, the work doesn’t stop. Neither do the expectations.
We provide fractional and interim chief marketing officer (CMO) services for colleges and universities navigating leadership transitions, organizational change or periods when they need experienced marketing leadership without a permanent hire. From setting priorities and supporting teams to advising presidents and Cabinet leaders, we help institutions maintain momentum while preparing for what comes next.
If your team spends more time tracking down project updates than actually moving work forward, something needs to change.
We assess higher education marketing project management workflows, tools and processes, then help institutions select, configure and implement systems that fit how their teams operate. That includes improving intake, clarifying approvals, establishing accountability and training staff to make the new approach stick.
A strategic plan shouldn’t be a beautifully formatted list of everything everyone wants to do.
We help higher education marketing and communications leaders develop strategic plans that connect institutional priorities to realistic goals, resource decisions, responsibilities and measures of success. The result is a plan that helps your team decide what to do, what to stop doing and where to focus its energy.
Your team has probably experimented with AI. The harder question is how to make it useful beyond individual experiments.
We help colleges and universities move from AI experimentation to implementation through readiness assessments, practical use cases, workflow design, governance and adoption planning. Our work connects generative AI to the real responsibilities of higher education marketing, communications and enrollment teams.
Your team doesn’t need another presentation about how AI is going to change everything. They need to understand what they can actually do with it.
Our higher education AI workshops and training help marketing, communications and enrollment teams build practical skills, identify useful applications and work more effectively with generative AI. Sessions are grounded in the tools, tasks and decisions people encounter in their everyday work.
Moving into a leadership role doesn’t mean you suddenly have all the answers. And even experienced leaders benefit from having someone outside the institution to talk things through with.
We provide leadership coaching and strategic advisory support for executive leaders, higher education CMOs, marketing and communications executives, and emerging leaders. From navigating campus politics and managing teams to making difficult decisions and leading organizational change, we offer an experienced perspective from someone who’s been in the role.
Common challenges we solve
Our structure isn’t set up to support strategy
Roles and responsibilities are unclear
We’re navigating leadership transition or change
Our systems and workflows are slowing us down
We need a clearer strategic direction
We want to integrate AI, but don’t know where to start
Our leaders need support in stepping into more strategic roles
Common questions
When should a university consider a marketing organizational assessment?
An assessment can be valuable when responsibilities are unclear, marketing teams are struggling with capacity, work is duplicated across departments or institutional priorities have changed without corresponding changes to staffing and structure.
It can also help during leadership transitions, before a major reorganization or when an institution is considering whether to centralize marketing and communications functions.
Does Solve recommend centralized marketing structures?
Not automatically. Centralization can improve coordination, consistency and resource allocation, but it can also create bottlenecks or weaken the relationships that make distributed teams effective.
We examine the institution’s goals, culture, staffing, resources and existing operations before recommending a structure. Sometimes the answer is greater centralization. Sometimes it’s clearer governance and better coordination. Often, it’s a combination.
When should a higher education leader hire a strategic advisor?
Sometimes you need an experienced perspective without hiring another executive or launching a full consulting engagement.
A strategic advisor can be particularly valuable during leadership transitions, organizational change, major strategic decisions or periods when competing priorities make it difficult to see the path forward.
Solve provides ongoing or project-based strategic advisory support to college presidents, CMOs, enrollment leaders and other higher education executives. We serve as a sounding board, challenge assumptions, help evaluate options and offer candid counsel from people who understand the complexities of institutional leadership.
How is strategic advisory different from hiring an interim or fractional CMO?
An interim or fractional chief marketing officer typically assumes responsibility for leading some or all of an institution’s marketing function. That might include supervising staff, managing priorities, overseeing budgets and participating in executive leadership discussions.
A strategic advisor works alongside existing leadership rather than taking over the function. Solve provides independent counsel, helps leaders evaluate options, reviews plans and supports decision-making without becoming part of the institution’s management structure.
Both approaches can be valuable. The right choice depends on whether your institution needs someone to lead the work or help its leaders make better decisions.
Can strategic advisory be an ongoing relationship?
Yes. Some institutions engage Solve for a particular decision, organizational challenge or leadership transition. Others benefit from regular access to experienced counsel over several months.
Ongoing relationships allow us to develop a deeper understanding of your institution, its priorities and the challenges you’re navigating. Engagements are structured around the level of support you need rather than a fixed consulting package.
Better structures. Better decisions. Less friction.
Organizational structures that reflect institutional priorities and available resources.
Clearer responsibilities, reporting relationships and decision-making authority.
More effective collaboration across marketing, communications and enrollment.
Leadership continuity during transitions and organizational change.
Better project intake, workflows and accountability.
Strategic plans that guide resource allocation and everyday decisions.
Responsible AI adoption that helps teams improve how they work.
More confident leaders equipped to navigate complex institutional challenges
Why Solve?
We’ve been responsible for making the organization work.
We’ve built marketing and communications divisions, inherited structures that needed rethinking, led large teams and managed multimillion-dollar budgets. We know what it’s like to make organizational decisions when the needs are greater than the resources and every change affects real people.
That experience shapes our approach to organizational consulting. We look beyond the org chart to understand institutional culture, decision-making, leadership and the relationships that influence how work gets done.
We don’t believe in recommending changes simply because they look good on paper. We believe in understanding what an institution needs, involving the right people and helping leaders make thoughtful decisions they can actually carry through.
Ready to get started?
Whether you’re rethinking your marketing organization, navigating a leadership transition or trying to make new technology work for your team, you don’t have to figure it all out alone.
Tell us what you’re dealing with. We’ll help you think through what comes next.