Shannon Looney is principal of SML Consulting. She brings over 15 years of experience in higher education research, programming, and strategic planning. Her career experiences span across national research and policy organizations and major higher education associations. Prior to launching her firm, Shannon was the Deputy Executive Director of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) in which she directed the office’s student success and transformational scaling initiatives as well as served as the managing director of USU/APLU staff and their associated initiatives. Her expertise is on scaling student success programming, leadership engagement, and organizational change management efforts with a focus on public four-year universities. She is certified in Design Thinking through Portland State University and has received additional certification and training in process mapping, equity facilitation, and collective impact theory. Looney provides design, facilitation, sensemaking, and strategic planning for both higher education institutions, national associations, and philanthropy. Former and current clients include the Arizona State University, American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), VentureWell, rpkGROUP, Unite-LIA, and the XPRIZE Foundation.
