Experienced Leadership

Heather Cornell, founder of How Opportunity Works, Inc. has been involved in education and training since college.  She graduated from Denison University with a Bachelor's Degree in English and a Secondary Education Certificate.  She taught high school English and Physical Education in Charlottesville, Virginia before moving to Cleveland, Ohio where she became a corporate trainer for the Bell Systems.  Throughout her career in education and training Heather has focused on quality student retention and employee retention.

After raising three children, Heather returned to education with the University of Phoenix.  During her 10 years with the university she played an integral role in the growth of the university to more than 300,000 students.  Her emphasis on student retention helped her campuses consistently surpass expectations. 

Heather has lead the creation of online enrollment centers from the ground up, including physical build-out, staffing, training, marketing, creation of all budget models, program selection, client interface, and delivery of expected outcomes.  Unique in the education sector, her competencies have helped major traditional universities, small community colleges, private universities, career schools, and for-profit degree granting institutions.

While at the University of Phoenix, her departments developed and implemented training for thousands of admissions counselors and managers.  Heather also oversaw the growth of blended learning programs to more than 13,000 students. Heather improved growth and student retention in the miitary division by focusing on quality hiring and training.  She launched the first corporate revenue center for the university by creating a new online campus.  She was responsible for national accounts as well as the training for the outside sales team. To improve employee retention she devised a university-wide recruitment program. Heather also developed strategic partnerships with other universities to help them launch online initiatives.  Because Heather focuses on a student-centered model, she has earned respect, not only among her peers within the university, but within the education sector as a whole. Her roles have encompassed positions in the field through CEO, allowing her to interface effectively at any level within an organization.

After the University of Phoenix, Heather went on to become, respectively, COO for an education call center services company and CEO for a higher education marketing and consulting firm.  She has worked with various colleges and universities as well as with potential school buyers.  She now focuses on working directly with colleges and universities in the traditional, for-profit, and career sectors.  Her company focuses on helping schools design and implement measurable solutions for quality student growth and retention. 

Heather uses a systematic approach, called human performance technology (HPT), to improve performance outcomes.  HPT includes five basic processes: performance analysis, gap and causal identification, intervention selection, change management guidance, and evaluation.   Knowing that strategies are meaningless without effective implementation, her goal is to partner with each school to successfully implement and reinforce processes, practices, and behaviors, providing measurable outcomes for the work she provides.