Driving Institutional Strategy as a Chief Strategist or Chief of Staff

Driving Institutional Strategy as a Chief Strategist or Chief of Staff

July 28 - 29, 2025 | Denver, CO

Elevate your impact through a peer-driven workshop designed to strengthen strategic thinking, leadership agility, and cross-campus collaboration skills.

What You'll Gain

  • Drive strategic alignment and execution by keeping your leadership focused on key priorities.
  • Enhance the decision making of other senior leaders through engaging in collaborative practices and exploring how to apply them to your institution's context.
  • Build a culture of innovation and agility in the face of emerging trends and challenges.
  • Strengthen engagement and communication of stakeholders on your campus at all levels.

Overview

The Chief of Staff and Chief Strategy Officer roles have evolved significantly in higher ed over the past few years. These leaders are now commonly responsible for big-picture initiatives like guiding strategic planning, stewarding leadership transitions, onboarding new cabinet members, helping the President’s team run smoothly, and making sure senior leaders have the tools and mindset they need to lead effectively. 

To do all this well, it’s important to invest in your own leadership growth. That’s why we’ve designed this hands-on, highly practical workshop designed just for Chiefs of Staff and Chief Strategists in higher ed. You’ll connect with peers who understand your day-to-day, sharpen your skills as a convenor, facilitator and connector, and walk away with fresh ideas to support your team and strengthen your institution. 

At the workshop, we’ll focus on individual leadership, senior team development, and overall talent development.  

Individual Leadership: 

  • You’ll develop both self and other-awareness to impact communication and collaboration across the institution.  
  • We’ll focus on designing meetings in a way that maximizes the contributions from your all participants, including quieter voices.  
image of participants at an Academic Impressions workshop
image of participants at an Academic Impressions workshop

Senior Team and Overall Talent Development: 

  • You’ll learn to build leadership capacity both for where the institution is now and where it needs to move in the future.  
  • We’ll help you see how to onboard and develop leaders with these skills in mind.  
  • You’ll understand the specific practices and behaviors that define high-performing teams, assess how your senior team aligns with those behaviors, and work to ensure your senior team functions at its highest potential.  

Session Descriptions

More details about the timing of the days can be found by clicking Learn More and Register, but session descriptions of the two days are below: 

Day One
Theme: Individual Leadership

Future Timeline
The world of higher education is experiencing fundamental change and will likely continue to transform in new and unexpected ways. In this interactive session, we’ll explore the events, trends, and issues that will impact higher ed over the next decade and identify practical strategies essential to developing an anticipatory mindset. Exploring what we unearth, you’ll apply the learning to your specific role and institutional context to develop next steps and implementation strategies.

Understanding Your Leadership Through the Five Paths
Self-awareness is at the heart of effective leadership. This session guides you through the Five Paths to Leadership® Self-Assessment, which allows you to understand your strengths and natural tendencies when it comes to your leadership. The assessment can be helpful in deepening self-awareness as well as adapting your style to meet the needs of others.

Strengthening Your Leadership with the Leader You Serve
In this activity, you’ll apply what you just learned about the Five Paths to reflect on the leadership style of the leader you serve in relation to your own. Where is there natural complementarity? Where do the two of you get stuck or generate friction? What can you do to manage up, communicate effectively, and build trust as a means of strengthening the overall relationship?

Leading Authentically in the Chief of Staff Role
When Becky Culyba stepped into her role as Chief of Staff to the Provost at Carnegie Mellon University, the organization was very lean, lacking several key leaders and functions. Since then, Becky has consistently evolved the organizational structure and implemented numerous initiatives to drive change and innovation, building out portfolios and responsibilities more extensively. She has also created standard operating procedures and processes and been able to develop academic leaders across the enterprise. In this session, Becky will discuss not only how and what these key initiatives have looked like but also how her own personal leadership journey and relationship to her role has evolved and deepened throughout her tenure.

Day Two
Theme: Team and Organizational Leadership

“What’s Keeping Chiefs of Staff Up at Night?” Moderated Speaker Panel
To kick off our second day, we’ll assemble our speaker team to engage in a moderated panel discussion framed around the question, “What’s keeping Chiefs of Staff up at night?” We’ll crowdsource topics from the group ahead of time to ensure the conversation is both focused and relevant.

Miami University Case Study: Strategies for Moving the Needle on Culture
In the post-COVID era, a major focus of Jill Gaby’s role within the University Advancement division has been creating a more positive, high-performing culture. In this session, Jill will share the role that senior team development, effective meeting practices, employee appreciation and communication, and leadership development across the organization have played in transforming culture and driving results.

Building High-Performing Teams
Most teams struggle not because they don’t have the requisite talent but because they don’t focus enough on their group dynamics and process—how they work together. In this session, we’ll examine several often-overlooked strategies that high-performing teams practice in order to ensure trust can grow, everyone’s voices are included, the purpose and mission are clear, decisions are made effectively, and creative and innovative thinking are supported. You’ll also have a chance to take our High-Performing Teams Assessment as a way to help you reflect on and diagnose areas of strength and opportunities for growth within the functioning of your current senior team.

Effective Succession Planning
In this session, we’ll revisit our output from the Future Timeline activity and use this to identify which critical leadership skills, qualities, and attributes will be most needed to lead our institutions into the future. We’ll then do some small group work to surface some effective models for leadership development and succession planning to arm you with strategies and ideas you can take back to begin more intentional succession planning at your institution, or to improve what’s already in place.

Who Should Attend

Chief Strategy Officers and Chiefs of Staffs will benefit most from this workshop.

How You'll Use This to Move Work Forward

  • Chief Strategy Officers - Focus your senior leaders and managers on effective strategy that turns vision into action.
  • Chiefs of Staff - Build buy-in and drive action on your campus through streamlined communication. 
  • Leaders at the Divisional Level Align your division with institutional priorities and goals and generate engagement on your teams.

Previous Attendee Breakdown

Previous Attendee Breakdown: Other 4%; Private, 4 year 36%; Private, R1 8%; Public, 4 year 32%; Public, R1 20%

Speakers

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Amy Giordano
Senior Learning & Development Manager, Academic Impressions

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image of Sarah Seigle Peatman

Sarah Seigle Peatman
Director of Partner Development, Academic Impressions

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Image of Rebecca Culyba

Rebecca Culyba, Ph.D.
Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives and Chief of Staff to the Provost, Carnegie Mellon University

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image of Jill Gaby

Jill Gaby
Associate Vice President of Advancement, Miami University

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What makes our events different?

Academic Impressions workshops provide the opportunity for quality conversations and relationship-building through both formal and informal networking opportunities in an intimate setting. Our in-depth and hands-on approach to learning provides you with actionable takeaways.

Learn More About the Academic Impressions Workshop Experience ➞

Location

Academic Impressions’ Denver-based office

5299 DTC Blvd, Suite 1400
Greenwood Village, CO 80111

Denver skyline

Invest in Your Team Before Fiscal Year-End

Make the most of your budget and support your team’s leadership growth with Workshop Group Packs. For a limited time, save up to $795 per registrant with special fiscal year pricing—available through June 30. Discounts are automatically applied at checkout.

What Our Attendees Are Saying

AI has provided a network and resource base for Strategy officers that can lift the level of work being pursued by the cohort. We will continue to stay engaged! 

This was a phenomenal experience! The opportunity to build community with peers who understand the complexities of the role is invaluable. 

Pricing

July 28 - 29, 2025
Denver, CO

Starting at:

  • Member Price: $2,145/person
  • Non-Member Price: $2,395/person
  • Team Discount: $2,000/person (for 3 or more)

Members get a $250 discount!

Questions About the Event?

Amy-Headshot-scaled

Amy Giordano

Senior Learning & Development Manager, Academic Impressions

Read Full Bio.