Robert C. Dickeson provides counsel from multiple leadership perspectives: chair of the governor’s cabinets in two states, university president, business CEO, and foundation executive. Dickeson served as the director of the department of administration and chair of the cabinet of Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt; and chief of staff, executive director of the office of state planning and budget, and chair of the cabinet of Colorado Gov. Roy Romer. He served in administrative posts at three universities and was president of the University of Northern Colorado from 1981-91. He served as president and CEO of Noel-Levitz Centers Inc., division president of USA Enterprises Inc., and senior vice president of USA Group Inc., heading the USA Group Foundation. From 2000 to 2005, he was co-founder and senior vice president of Lumina Foundation for Education.

While at Lumina Foundation, he led the national initiative on college costs, based on his monograph, Collision Course: Rising College Costs Threaten America’s Future and Require Shared Solutions (Lumina Foundation, 2004). His book, Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999, 2010) was based on his extensive consulting experiences including serving several hundred two- and four-year colleges (private and public) and corporations ranging from hospitals to bank holding companies. During 2006, he served as senior policy adviser to the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education.