Lindenwood University President Dr. John R. Porter joins ADU’s Tai M. Brown at the 2025 NCAA Convention to discuss his vision for an educational ecosystem and offer insight into how a business mindset can transform higher education. Porter, who spent 33 years at IBM leading efforts such as strategic outsourcing, reflects on how the leadership lessons instilled in him through that portion of his career and a lifelong passion for serving students led to the perfect opportunity with Lindenwood, noting that the search presidential search was focused on finding an innovative, business-minded problem-solver. Porter: [The university said] “we have the academic piece and we really want a mindset of how do we balance the checkbook.”
Porter shares more about the Lindenwood Education System (LES), a multi-pronged approach to education developed using strategic mergers and acquisitions; defines his “40/40/20” rule for diversifying revenue streams; and discusses the role of Athletics in the long-term strategic vision for the university: “I want an ecosystem, once you get into the Lindenwood ecosystem, the LES, you don’t have to go anywhere else. If you want to get an electrical certificate, HVAC or beauty, you can do that, but if you decide a couple years later, hey, I want to get a two-year associates degree, we’ve got Ancora. If you want to get a four-year degree, you go to Lindenwood. My next acquisition, I’m looking at a nonprofit university that’s got 40 PhD programs. Once you get into the Lindenwood Education System, you can stay in it forever because everything’s there.”
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