About Rick

Rick Hardy is a higher education marketing and enrollment leader and strategist. He has extensive experience in competitive online markets for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as in the traditional undergraduate market.

Rick has built marketing and enrollment programs for two universities that were highly productive. As associate vice president at Concordia University Irvine, he was lead marketing and admissions officer, and a member of the university leadership team that collaborated to grow its enrollment revenue by 56% from 2011-2019.

In 2016, the university was named by the Chronicle of Higher Education as being the 15^th fastest growing private nonprofit master’s university in the country.

As dean and then vice president at Vanguard University of Southern California, Rick’s enrollment and marketing organizations produced 14 consecutive years of enrollment increase, growing the university’s enrollment by 136%—from 921 students to 2,171 students.

During this growth period, he was the architect and director of the University Rollout Campaign, and chair of the committee, that successfully launched university status as Southern California College changed its name to Vanguard University.

Rick knows his way around a university campus having worked on staff, on the faculty as assistant professor and dean, and in senior administration as a vice president. It’s a wonderful but politically complicated environment that a marketing and enrollment leader must navigate, requiring a high performing skill set of critical thinking, creativity and empathy.

Rick has been fortunate to have worked with such talented teams and colleagues, and to have been a leader at two universities that understood that by investing in competitive marketing and enrollment programs their mission could be sustained and advanced.

Rick is now looking for his next opportunity.

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