Simon Blackwell didn’t have a long-standing career in academia before he became Chief Transformation Officer of Mount Saint Mary’s University. His background included ecommerce banking, aerospace, and Wall Street. The institution brought him on initially as a consultant, saw promise, and the rest is history. Whether small or large innovative projects, his approach is to first create a framework to instill a common understanding of the transformation, enlist a committee of manageable size with fresh thinkers, then find the intersection of what they’re good at and passionate about. Blackwell provides many examples with detail in this Top of Mind podcast.