Higher Ed Leaders Podcast

Season 2 of Higher Ed Leaders: Bold Moves & Entrepreneurial Leadership in Higher Ed

Hosted by Dr. Suzan Brinker, Viv Higher Education Co-founder & CEO

Welcome to Season 2 of Higher Ed Leaders, the podcast for college and university professionals who believe in higher education’s unmatched ability to transform lives and communities.

In the 2025  season, we’re exploring what it means to lead with entrepreneurial courage. You’ll hear from presidents, provosts, and vice presidents across enrollment, strategy, marketing, and student success as they share how they’re:

• Making decisions with imperfect data

• Saying no to misaligned initiatives

• Reimagining operations, brand, and student engagement

• And accelerating the pace of change at their institutions

If you’re ready for real talk and real tools from those shaping the future of higher ed, you’re in the right place.

Season 1 of Higher Ed Leaders:  Transforming and Innovating Higher Education

Hosted by Suzan Brinker, Ph.D. | Co-founder & CEO, and Audra DeLaney-Hall | Vice President of People Operations, Viv Higher Education

Season 1 of Higher Ed Leaders featured candid conversations with changemakers across higher education. Presidents, CMOs, VPs, and others shared how they advanced strategy, strengthened brand, drove academic innovation, and shaped organizational culture. From bold planning to new approaches, the podcast highlighted the leaders who pushed boundaries and helped elevate the future of education.

ExecU: Conversations with Faculty from Top Business Schools

Hosted by Viv Higher Ed founder Suzan Brinker, Ph.D., ExecU featured in-depth conversations with executive education faculty from top business schools like MIT, Columbia, and Yale. Designed for leaders looking to sharpen their thinking and expand their impact, each episode explored timely topics ranging from morality to productivity and beyond.

This podcast series offered practical insights from some of higher ed’s most forward-thinking minds.

Season 2 featured bold voices in higher ed leadership, including Catherine Whelburg (Athens State University), Paul McGinnis (Bethel University), Lisa Keegan (Bucknell University), Nathan Ament (Knox College), Frank Hribar (Adrian College), Debra Liebowitz (Quinnipiac University), Willem de Ruijter (Geneva College), Jenny Petty (University of Montana), Monique Guillory (Dillard University), Kent Barnds (Augustana College), Jeffrey Senese (Caldwell University), Karlyn Crowley (Ohio Wesleyan University), Michael Hammond (Gordon College), and Thom Chesney (Southwestern College New Mexico).

Season 1 guests included leaders such as Leo Lambert (Elon University), Kerry Salerno (Babson College), Laurie Joyner (St. Norbert College), Jaime Hunt (Old Dominion University), Greg Weiner (Assumption University), Allison Turcio (Siena College), Kimberly Zimmerman (Knox College), Mary Beth Williams (Millersville University), Carrie Phillips (University of Arkansas at Little Rock), Danielle O’Neil (University of New Hampshire), Walter Wendler (West Texas A&M), Jefferson Blackburn-Smith (Otterbein University), and Brian Bruess and Kara Kolomitz (College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University).

The ExecU series featured faculty from top business schools, including Anne Weisberg (New York University), Matt Abrahams (Stanford University), Chethana Achar (Northwestern University), David Tate (Yale University), Bill Klepper (Columbia Business School), Aravind Chandrasekaran (The Ohio State University), Lauren Chenarides (Arizona State University), Rodrigo Jordan (University of Pennsylvania), Bob Pozen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Inês Black (Duke University), Anat Lechner (New York University), and Robert Siegel (Stanford University).