Cornerstone Leadership Group
Cornerstone Leadership Group is a higher education leadership consultancy founded by Dr. Kevin Sanders, a nationally recognized leader in academic leadership development, coaching, and organizational systems in higher education.
Cornerstone specializes in helping colleges and universities tackle their most pressing leadership challenges — whether that's preparing new leaders for their roles, building team alignment and accountability, designing systems that actually scale, or translating institutional strategy into execution. Our work is grounded in a deep understanding of how academic institutions operate and what it takes to drive real change in complex environments.
What sets Cornerstone apart is Kevin's practitioner perspective. He has held senior leadership roles, developed high-achieving teams, sat on provost's councils, and driven institutional change that shows up in the numbers: breaking enrollment records at two institutions, planning and opening a $40 million Performing Arts Center, launching new academic programs, and expanding the donor base through major gift development. He is a Fellow of the ASU-Georgetown Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership, a graduate of Harvard's Management Development Program for Higher Education Leadership, an ICF-certified coach, and is represented nationally by APB Speakers Bureau. As the author of The Academic Leader's Playbook — a weekly newsletter read in over 30 countries — and a frequent speaker at institutions and conferences nationwide, Kevin brings real-world results and national reach to every engagement.
Cornerstone is built on the belief that higher education leadership should prepare leaders to lead change, build teams that can execute strategy, and create systems that remove friction from daily work. We deliver strategic, high-impact, customized solutions grounded in how academic institutions actually operate. Institutions that do this work don't just run more smoothly — they become stronger campuses, more capable of achieving the outcomes that matter most.
The insight behind the work
Many years ago, I spent a month performing with a professional orchestra abroad. The first week, a guest conductor led rehearsals — clear about what he wanted, generous with productive feedback, holding a standard that brought out your best. After rehearsal, musicians lingered just to keep talking about the music.
The second week, the permanent conductor returned. He focused only on what was wrong, treated every question as a challenge to his authority, and was unpredictable — nobody knew what would set him off. By the end of that week, something had shifted. Questions stopped. Shoulders pulled in. The sound of the entire orchestra became smaller.
Same musicians. Completely different sound.
That experience stayed with me. Great music works because the conditions for it exist. Musicians arrive at rehearsal having studied the same score and knowing how their part fits in the plan. Individual voices serve the ensemble's shared vision. Feedback is immediate, not once a year. And collaboration is a daily requirement of the work, not a stated value. These conditions don't appear by accident. Someone has to build them — and too many leaders have to figure that out alone. That's the problem Cornerstone exists to solve.
Kevin Sanders
After two decades as a faculty member and senior leader in higher education — driven by his experience leading institutional change and his belief that investing in leaders makes all the difference — Kevin Sanders launched Cornerstone Leadership Group in 2023 with one clear mission: building the leaders who build the campus.
Kevin's career began on a stage. As a classically trained tubist, he performed with world-class orchestras across five continents before bringing that same collaborative spirit into academic administration. For over a decade, he served in progressively senior leadership roles — including associate chair, director, and dean — at the University of Memphis (large, public R1) and Baylor University. Prior to this, he began his faculty career at SUNY-Potsdam and the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. He currently serves on the Baylor faculty.
A natural-born collaborator and builder at heart, Kevin has spent his career creating things that didn't exist before — alongside the faculty, staff, and community partners who made them possible. From opening a landmark performing arts center to breaking enrollment records to establishing partnerships that reach far beyond campus, his work has always been grounded in the belief that the best outcomes are achieved with others.
Kevin has navigated every dimension of academic leadership — strategic planning, faculty development, enrollment strategy, curriculum design, capital projects, donor relations, and community partnerships. Leading teams of more than 100 faculty and staff, he has hired and fired, developed leaders and teams, restructured departments, set enrollment records, launched programs, and created international partnerships. He has lived through the messy middle of academic leadership — from celebrating brilliant colleagues to the decisions that follow you home.
He holds degrees from Indiana University, The Juilliard School, and Michigan State University, with executive education from Cornell University and Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the ASU-Georgetown Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership, a graduate of Harvard's Management Development Program for Higher Education Leadership, an ICF-certified coach, and is represented nationally by APB Speakers Bureau.
When he's not talking leadership, you'll find Kevin exploring the local arts scene with his wife Catherine (a pediatric pulmonologist who loves beekeeping and wins at word games), their two creative and energetic kids, George and Genevieve, and their golden retriever, Fitzgerald, who largely runs the show. His happy place is outside in the mountains, wrapped up in a good science fiction or historical novel.
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