The keynote speakers for INNOVATE 2024, Capture Higher Ed’s free virtual conference for recruitment marketing leaders and professionals, will be Jaime Hunt and Gil Rogers, two industry leaders who have dedicated their careers to higher education.
The conference will be Wednesday, Oct. 16, and Thursday, Oct. 17, from noon – 4 p.m. ET. You can register for it here.
Jaime Hunt, founder of Solve Higher Ed Marketing and host of the podcast, “Confessions of a Higher Education CMO,” will kick off the conference at 12:10 p.m. on Wednesday with her presentation, “From Silos to Synergy: Bridging the Gap Between Admissions and Marketing.”
As enrollment pressures mount, the alliance between admissions and marketing is more critical than ever. Hunt’s session will explore the strategic harmony necessary between admissions professionals and their marketing counterparts to achieve institutional goals. She will share practical strategies for fostering a productive relationship with your university’s chief marketing officer and leveraging your marketing office to its fullest potential.
Brands, Stories, Empathy
Jaime Hunt
After a 20-year career in higher education, including nine years as a chief marketing officer, Hunt launched Solve Higher Ed Marketing earlier this year. To this consultancy, she has brought a passion for building brands, telling stories and leading with empathy.
After beginning her career in print journalism, Hunt began working in higher education in 2004. Since that time, she has been responsible for media relations, marketing, creative direction, crisis communications, branding, digital communications, government relations and more.
For nearly a decade, she served in vice president/chief communications and marketing officer roles at Old Dominion University, Miami University and Winston-Salem State University. Prior to those roles, she served in marketing, web strategy, branding and media relations leadership roles at Radford University, the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and Northwestern Health Sciences University.
Throughout her career, Hunt has been a highly visible leader with volunteer service for professional organizations and her work has earned more than 40 industry awards.
Hunt holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota and a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from West Virginia University.
INNOVATE Day 2 Keynote
The second day of the conference will start with Gil Rogers’s session, “Falling Forward is Better than Falling Behind: Lessons from 20 Years in EdTech.”
Over the last two decades much has changed in enrollment management and marketing. And yet, so many things remain the same, says Rogers, a self-professed higher education evangelist and founder of GR7 Marketing.
“Institutions continue to report more and more applications, completed applications and admits,” he says. “And yet, enrollment is flat or down. This indicates that by and large we’re doing far more work for the same net result. No wonder we’re faced with a talent drain!”
During his discussion, the podcast host and EdTech enthusiast will reflect on a career that currently spans two decades with experience on all sides of the desk. He will talk about the lessons learned from failed experiments and challenge conference attendees to think about how enrollment leaders “aren’t necessarily avoiding failure by avoiding risk but rather are willingly heading straight toward the edge of the cliff.”
Education Startup Revolutionary
Gil Rogers
A recognized leader in higher education enrollment management and marketing, Rogers dove headfirst into the education startup revolution 15 years ago after leading record-breaking recruitment cycles at the University of New Haven.
In 2011, Rogers joined the Zinch.com team to lead the company’s marketing and thought leadership initiatives. Seven years later, he moved to the National Research Center for College and University Admissions (NRCCUA) to support their new strategic partnership with Chegg’s digital marketing team while helping introduce the company’s new approach to data-informed enrollment management, Encoura.
His energy and enthusiasm are used to help colleges and universities understand how to best reach prospective students in support of their enrollment goals. At NRCCUA, he supports the Eduventures research agenda and leads numerous research initiatives including best practices for recruitment strategies for transfer students and graduate programs, social media outreach strategy, and much more.
Rogers presents on these and other topics at numerous national conferences throughout the year and his knowledge and expertise is sought by undergraduate admissions, graduate admissions and international admissions professionals throughout the industry.
Register Anyway
If you are unavailable to attend INNOVATE 2024, go ahead and sign up anyway. We will send you recordings of the sessions at the conclusion of the conference.
