Ken Wilson Email & Phone Number

Gaylord, Mi, Us

Providing management consulting services to higher education institutions, EdTech, and Private Equity companies, driving focus and alignment through actionable insights to maximize value and impact:• SIS, ERP, and CRM implementation support and best practices (vendor and client)• Digital transformation / modernization readiness assessments• Artificial Intelligence strategic alignment, organizational roadmap, with supporting KPIs• M&A company valuation validation, acquisition considerations, and integration strategies

Boca Raton, Florida, Us

The merger of Anthology and Blackboard required a strong focus on integration and operations while also leveraging combined strengths to drive global impact:• Latin America (LAC) - selling enterprise solutions requires navigating conversations with many different buyer personas. The approach differs significantly from selling departmental solutions. I aligned myself with LAC (a strategic market) to enable the sales and sales support teams to identify, qualify, and progress enterprise opportunities• Global go-to-market (GTM) readiness - it is one thing to sell a product into a new country. It is another thing entirely to maximize the likelihood of its success. To ensure the latter, I spearheaded a cross-departmental program that assesses both strategic markets and individual opportunities to ensure company awareness, readiness, and support for entering new markets• Financial modeling - as our understanding of our solutions' readiness for various markets, the company projected financial growth estimates over several years. I supported the global Student Information System assessment• Sales reorganization - one of the final integration activities in North America was to align the sales teams to our new company model. After this reorganization, each sales representative was able to sell the full portfolio. An obvious and relatively straightforward change actually represented the largest reorganization in the history of the company. I owned the overall timeline and messaging. However, my greatest contribution was in partnering with Human Resources to drive change management strategy, visibility, and support

Boca Raton, Florida, Us

With the 2020 merger and subsequent integration efforts in full swing, my role focused on the following:• Operations - ensuring timely and accurate reporting across our business units• Integration - aligned processes across the merged teams and across departments• Sales strategy - identified when and how to position solutions from across our legacy companies together• Rules of Engagement - collected feedback on the published ROE and updated to improve inter-team collaborationWe also re-launched our internal lead referral program and supporting systems. Internal leads are some of our highest value, so creating a simple approach to submit, assign, and track these leads was critical, especially wtih the first major merger behind us. As the executive sponsor, I worked across Sales, Product, Services, Support, Marketing, and Operations to champion the initiative and ensure adequate support. Since its launch, it has generated almost $10M in recurring revenue, with increased participation and results each year.When the merger with Blackboard was announced in late 2021, my role shifted further:• Aligned sales operations to the business operations team• Identified target solutions to cross sell into each legacy company's install base. This required strategic conversations across several departments at a time when we were just learning about each other• Assumed a stronger role in global sales strategy. The identified products were intended to be sold globally, requiring coordination and collaboration across teams that were still integrating together

Boca Raton, Florida, Us

A continuation of my prior role, I also assumed the responsibility for Sales Operations:• Pipeline, forecast, and bookings (standard reports and dashboards)• Sales attainment tracking (team and individual)• Client book of business management and reporting• The merger of three legacy CRMs (Campus Management, CampusLabs, and iModules) into a single CRMWorking more closely with sales data, I reviewed it against RFP opportunities and those where vendor selection partners were involved. Insights from these influenced which RFPs we pursued and how we worked with vendor selection partners.When the merger was announced, I continued my role as integration point of contact for the team. It was also clear that the sales and client experience teams needed defined rules of engagement (ROE). I worked with leadership to draft, finalize, and dissemenate the ROE to impacted teams.

Boca Raton, Fl, Us

Becoming a Vice President was less a new role and more a recognition by executive leadership across the organization of my contribution and impact.However, in addition to what I had been doing, I began supporting M&A integration and product launches:• Assumed managerial oversight for resources from Education Partners and Hobsons, helping them to integrate into the company and find the right place for them to sit• Led Field Operations integration activities after the merger with CampusLabs and iModules, coordinating and collaborating with other integration leaders across the company• Supported the go-to-market strategy for our next generation CRM• Participated as a sponsor for a new product, Occupation Insight, recommending sales strategy, list pricing, marketing rollout, and more. This product, in particular, was a recognized market differentiator, and continues to be a cornerstone for new solutions• Defined market messaging about the impact of the company merger, helping external facing teams convey "the Anthology story"

Boca Raton, Fl, Us

At this time in Campus Management's history, we saw a need to pivot into new sectors of higher education, specifically private, not-for-profit, and 2-year public institutions. My prior work in higher education enabled me to contribute to this new direction.In this role, I continued to lead our growing team of Strategic Consultants. In addition, I formally took on responsibility to drive inter-departmental alignment:• Remove barriers. I led initiatives to remove barriers across teams. One such barrier was the lack of a standard, reliable tool for estimating services. In an ERP opportunity, effectively and accurately capturing delivery costs and timelines is critical in establishing trust and credibility. I worked with Services, Legal, Finance, and Sales to define, document, and create such a tool• Competitor analysis. As Campus Management pivoted into new markets, the competitors changed, as well. Representing our value proposition now had to account for these competitors and their established presence. Differentiation in this new space required new mental constructs that could be embraced across the companyA testament to our success was that at this time and for many years, Campus Management led the US in new SIS sales every year, with growth driven in our new target markets.

Boca Raton, Fl, Us

When Jim Brigadier joined Campus Management overseeing Sales and Client Experience, he saw what I was doing with clients and saw the greater opportunity to support sales opportunities, as well. The service I provided to clients was ultimately product agnostic. It did not take many adjustments to equally support prospective clients going through a process.I was made director over strategic consulting and recruited a team to also do what I had been doing. The role expanded to also include sales and product conversations:• Opportunity impact assessments - Aligned prospect strategic goals and critical pain points to their anticipated outcomes with our solutions• RFP and Sales strategy - with industry and institutional insights, the team defined strategy to articulate Campus Management's value proposition in meaningful ways to each prospective client, with a commitment to authenticity, transparency, and credibility• Product feedback - our collective industry and solution experience combined with our real world conversations with current and prospective clients to provide Product Management with insights to improve and differentiate our solutionsIt was during this chapter that my role began expanding to support interdepartmental collaboration and coordination within Campus Management. Interestingly, while Campus Management was an EdTech company with unique characteristics, I found many similarities to my prior experience working across executive leadership within higher education institutions themselves. Whether working with a CFO, a CIO, Human Resources, or the CEO / President, the roles were more similar than different. It made for much easier conversations to drive internal alignment.

Boca Raton, Fl, Us

Campus Management created this position to allow me to support clients holistically. With a background in higher education, enterprise systems expertise, and competence in our solutions and user personas, this was a natural evolution of my career, and immensely satisfying!Engaged Higher Education leadership (owners, executives, department managers) to identify and quantify opportunities for improvement in ways that align with the institution's mission:• Strategic Alignment - understand the institution's vision and critical pain points, such that any engagement outcome supports their direction• Operational Efficiencies - reviewed business process challenges to identify interdepartmental dependencies and recommendations for measurable improvement• Data Integrity - defining a path to a single version of the truth across the institution for accurate reporting and data-driven decision making• Revenue Impacts - enabled strategic, measurable growth in enrollment and retention, as well as potential new income streams• Compliance Risks - reviewed targeted areas for risk reduction, especially in Financial Aid, Placement and Outcomes• Technology Consolidation - outlined opportunities to strategically reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for enterprise solutionsWorking with clients to directly improve their use of our solutions and chart a path for continued progress definitely scratched an itch for me. It stretched me to hone my active listening and empathy skills, as I navigated varying perspectives and levels of satisfaction. An unexpected outcome was finding myself translating challenges, opportunities, and recommendations not only between departments, but across levels within a department. Operational users and managers often struggled to effectively communicate their needs with senior and executive leadership, and vice versa.

Boca Raton, Fl, Us

Managed the implementation of Student Information Systems (SIS) and Constitution Relationship Management (CRM) solutions across the institution:• Maintained effective executive and operational leader relationships internally and with clients• Consistently assigned large, complex, high visibility and / or high risk projects, requiring strong leadership and communication across many departments• Facilitated difficult conversations with Sales leadership when in-scope questions were raised• Led go-live sensitive product enhancement activities with Product Management and Product Development, contributing to baseline product enhancements• Leveraged PMI best practices for ERP software implementation project management• Contributed toward company implementation best practices and templatesEnterprise product implementations are not for the weak! Whether you are on the client or vendor side, staying engaged for multi-year projects requires consistent re-articulation of the vision while navigating the work itself, all the while managing the budget and providing updates to very different personas. These years were some of my most satisfying, as I relish the challenge and the many relationships I formed across the company and within each client. In the end, it was my desire to support clients more holistically that drove me to consider a new role. Projects and programs are meant to have a defined end. I wanted to support clients long-term, leveraging my broad experience in higher education and with our products.

Norwalk, Connecticut, Us

Managed software development projects for case management ERP systems. Projects ranged from customer-funded enhancements to full product releases:• Waterfall and Agile software development methodologies• Supported product management activities to define and deliver new releases• Led user conference sessions on new features• Co-facilitated focus groups with key customers to assess product direction• Provided knowledge transition and direct support to other teams (Client Support, Training, etc.)Managed cross-functional teams:• Blend of remote and on-site employees• Functional and technical resourcesThis was a very special chapter in my career. It was a step outside of higher education proper and into the technology side of business. It was also during this time that I achieved my PMP certification with PMI and assumed ownership of our baseline product team. We became known as the "dream team," recognized for both the amount of work we produced in aggressive timelines, but also for the high level of quality.

Berea, Ky, Us

Supported the ERP end user community both functionally and technically across the entire student life cycle:• Product support and escalation with vendor support• End user training and back-up support for Finance, Human Resources, and Payroll• Business Analysis to identify product customization requirements, reporting needs and prioritized initiatives• Mentored student workers to maximize the value of their education and post-graduation opportunitiesOf the three institutions I worked at, Berea College left the greatest mark. Its mission was clearly articulated and felt. When the work got hard, knowing they "why" kept me going. As important, the student relationships I fostered as part of the student-worker program translated my "why" into direct impact. When I moved into EdTech, I never lost my appreciation for the value of higher education. EdTech simply allowed me to expand my own impact to dozens of institutions and the students and communities they serve....not to mention that while working here I learned that my grandfather (who died before I was born) attended Berea College as a high school student. Talk about connections!

Wilmore, Ky, Us

Supported the Student Information System (SIS) from a functional and technical perspective, focusing on Admissions, Academics, Financial Aid, Bursar, and Advancement:• Provided general end user support• Developed and maintained customizations to the SIS, as well as in-house developed solutions• Supported the launch of Asbury's first on-line registration systemATS allowed me to broaden my understanding of ERP systems, as I supported teams and users across the institution. Understanding how each department worked independently allowed me to connect the dots on how they work together. Few in higher education are afforded the opportunity to see these connections at both a macro and micro level. It informed my appreciation of the complexities within organizations, as well as the challenge of aligning very different teams to shared goals.

Marion, Indiana, Us

Supported the Student Information System (SIS) functionally and technically, focusing on Admissions, Academics, Facilities, Bursar, Finance, Human Resources, Payroll, Student Services, and Advancement:• Supported end users generally, answering questions, providing reports, etc.• Created reports to augment the SIS, receiving a recognition award from our ERP vendor• Identified and merged duplicates as part of a larger data health roleI worked at IWU part time as a student worker while I attended full time. Landing in the IT team supporting our SIS was truly seminal for me. As a first-generation college student, I was able to see how the institution of higher education works together to support students like me.This was also a great time to be part of technology. The internet was just taking off in higher education, connecting institutions in ways that challenged our understanding of the world. Being part of that story, in its beginning, framed my appreciation for technology in the decades to come.