Your institution.
Your context.
A team built for it.
CBT brings together the nation's top higher education leaders — averaging 30 years of experience — to plan, adapt, and move forward. Including the rapid rise of AI.
The work institutions face now is harder, faster, and more public than ever.
Demographic cliffs. AI in every classroom. Public scrutiny. Internal capacity already stretched. We've sat in your seat — and we've helped institutions like yours through it.
Services built around your institution's goals.
Whether charting a new strategic direction, building leadership capacity, or navigating structural change — our consultants have done it before, in your seat.
Institutional planning
Strategic, master, and technology plans that build real consensus.
02 / LeadershipLeadership coaching
Cabinet, dean, chair coaching & succession planning.
AI strategy & institutional readiness
Mission-grounded AI strategy across policy, people, practice, and platform. Not hype — the same disciplined planning that got us here, applied to the question every president is asking.
Explore AI Strategy →Organizational design
Reorgs, role clarity, shared services.
05 / ResearchData & analysis
Enrollment, viability, outcomes research.
06 / GovernanceBoard & cabinet support
Facilitation, retreats, advisory work for boards and senior cabinets navigating complex decisions.
07 / Pivot in 60Pivot in 60
Focused, expert-led leadership development for higher education. 60-minute virtual sessions built around real workplace scenarios — for teams and emerging leaders who don't have time to lose.
The right expert for your institution. Every time.
Most consulting firms give you whoever's available. We design each team around your specific challenge, culture, and goals.
- i.
Practitioners, not theorists
Our consultants have held the actual roles — president, provost, CFO, dean. They know what it takes to move an institution forward under real constraints.
- ii.
Fit matters more than availability
Every project team is handpicked. We match consultants to institutions based on culture, context, and subject matter — not who's on the bench.
- iii.
Plans that stick
We work toward real consensus — the kind that survives a leadership transition and gets implemented long after we've left.
- iv.
Partnership through difficulty
We've been there during the hard moments. That's not incidental — it's the whole point.
Subject matter experts, not generalists.
Former presidents, provosts, CFOs, deans, and trustees — handpicked for each engagement. Over 60 practitioners nationwide.
What our clients say.
We've helped institutions across the country move from stuck to forward.
CBT brought structure and credibility to our planning process. For the first time in years, our entire cabinet was aligned.VP of Instruction · Community College, California
What set CBT apart was honesty. They told us what we needed to hear, not what we wanted to hear.Chief Human Resources Officer · R1 University, Minnesota
Their team understood our culture from day one. The strategic plan we developed together actually stuck — two years later, we're still executing it.President · Community College, New York
The CBT Coaches gave our leaders the practical reps they couldn't get anywhere else — focused, real, and grounded in our context. The growth has been measurable.Director of Learning & Leadership · University Health Science Center, Texas
Let's talk about your institution.
Most engagements begin with a single conversation. Tell us what you're facing — we'll tell you how we can help.