One Semester, One Strategy: How Board and Cabinet Alignment Accelerates Strategic Planning

Many strategic plans take twelve months to draft and arrive stale. Quinnipiac University did it in a single semester, and came out with sharper priorities, a more engaged board, and a cabinet that owned the result.

Role clarity lead to Quinnipiac’s success. To kickstart the process, trustees were asked to generate foundational ideas through a pre-retreat survey and a working retreat that pressure-tested mission, vision, values, and “big, hairy, audacious” ambitions worth chasing. The cabinet then did what cabinets should do: turn that input into draft strategy and take it back to the community. In short order, nearly 400 faculty, staff, students, and alumni weighed in across two open forums. The board gave final approval and, critically, the budget and resources to go from plan to implementation.

Join President Marie Hardin, Board Chair Chuck Saia, and AGB Senior Consultant Paul Friga for a 30 minute, executive-length webinar on what it takes to run a fast, inclusive, genuinely strategic planning process developed by AGB and leveraging AI.

This webinar explores how to:

• Tap the full expertise of your board without blurring the line between governance and management
• Clarify who creates strategy and who shapes it, so cabinet ownership and community input strengthen the plan instead of stalling it
• Compress the calendar to one semester and close the loop with budget, resources, and action

Moderator:

Justin Kollinger, associate vice president, AGB Consulting

Speakers:

Marie Hardin, PhD, president, Quinnipiac University
Chuck Saia, chair, board of trustees, Quinnipiac University
Paul N. Friga, PhD, senior consultant, AGB; clinical professor of strategy and entrepreneurship, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill