Mary Kreta partners with colleges and universities navigating complexity, change, and competing priorities. She is often brought in when institutions need an experienced thought partner who can quickly understand the situation, bring clarity to difficult decisions, and help leaders move from discussion to action.

Over more than two decades in higher education, Mary has served in executive leadership and consulting roles, helping institutions strengthen enrollment, improve operations, build organizational capacity, and lead through periods of significant change. Her experience spans public and private institutions, university systems, and organizations facing financial pressures, enrollment challenges, leadership transitions, and shifting external environments.

As Vice President for Enrollment Management and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Montana, Mary led the university's Enrollment Management division and served in the Office of Strategic Planning and Implementation. Under her leadership, the university reversed a decade-long enrollment decline, increasing the incoming class by 47 percent and growing net tuition revenue for those classes by nearly 88 percent through a coordinated, cross-campus enrollment strategy. Previously, as Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, she achieved 6% enrollment growth during financial exigency and again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mary is known for her ability to see both the big picture and the practical realities of implementation. Her experience in both executive enrollment leadership and institution-wide strategic planning gives her a broad perspective on how enrollment, finance, academic affairs, student affairs, operations, and institutional priorities influence one another. She understands that successful strategies must account not only for data and best practices, but also for institutional culture, competing interests, limited capacity, and the relationships that shape decision-making. Rather than delivering recommendations from the sidelines, she works alongside leadership teams to build alignment, strengthen decision-making, and accelerate progress.

No two engagements look exactly alike. Sometimes Mary serves as a strategic advisor to presidents and executive teams. Other times she facilitates planning, leads institutional initiatives, coaches emerging leaders, or provides additional capacity for projects that require experienced leadership. Across every engagement, her goal is the same: to help institutions make thoughtful decisions, build internal capacity, and achieve results that last beyond her involvement.