Chief enrollment management officers spend much of their time focusing on the enrollment funnel, guiding prospective students from awareness to inquiry to enrollment. But another funnel is just as important and is far less understood: the pipeline and development of the next generation of enrollment leaders.
With persistent turnover, the aftershocks of the Great Resignation, ongoing retirements of baby boomers, and the increasing scope of the role, institutions are facing pressure to build their leadership bench. Yet many campuses lack clear succession plans or pathways for developing future enrollment leaders.
So, what are campuses looking for in their next enrollment management leader, and how have those expectations changed?
Enrollment management, while still relatively “new” to higher education administration, has become a cornerstone of institutional success and sustainability. The function is increasingly enmeshed across campus units, from student success and academic affairs to finance and institutional planning. As the scope of enrollment management has expanded, the expectations placed on its leaders have expanded as well.
At the same time, institutions face uncertainty about who will fill these roles in the future. WittKieffer’s recent survey of chief enrollment management officers found that 62% were “considering or actively seeking a new role.” Of those individuals, 60% shared they would seek another enrollment leadership position. Despite this mobility, only about half of institutions report having succession plans in place for their chief enrollment officer (55%) or other enrollment leadership team members (48%).
What skills are needed for the next generation of enrollment leaders?
To explore this question, we analyzed Lightcast Job Postings for vice president of enrollment management positions. Figure 1 highlights the most common skills reflected in current job postings and how their prevalence has shifted in recent years.
Figure 1.
Source: Lightcast, Job Posting Analytics: Vice President of Enrollment Management, 2021 and 2025. Data reflects the leading specific skills seen in 2025 as compared to 2021.
Figure 1 provides insight into the skills most commonly associated with today’s vice president of enrollment management role and how these skills have shifted since 2021. Increases in skills related to “student services” and “academic affairs,” for example, show the position’s reach well beyond what is too often reduced to “admissions.” It also shows steep increases in skills such as “data analysis” and “customer relationship management” — a reflection of the ways that data and technology are continuing to reshape the practice.
“Strategic leadership” also emerges as a key skill, consistent with AACRAO’s findings that 61% of chief enrollment management officers served on their institution’s executive team in 2023, compared to 50% in 2014.
Figure 1 gives a sense of the prominent skills, but which skills are on the rise? We also explored emerging skills required for vice president of enrollment management roles, featured in Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Source: Lightcast, Job Posting Analytics: Vice President of Enrollment Management, 2025
Figure 2 emphasizes how data and technology skills have become central to the enrollment leadership role. Skills such as “predictive analytics,” “key performance indicators (KPIs),” and “market research” show how institutions are looking for leaders who can translate data into strategy — anticipating enrollment trends, measuring performance, and adjusting tactics in real time. These emerging skill requirements point to an enrollment leader who understands data and technology and can use both to innovate within their markets.
The appearance of “digital marketing” also highlights the evolution of long-standing skills expected of enrollment leaders. “Marketing” encompasses the digital space and requires digital expertise, and meeting students where they are increasingly means engaging them in digital spaces. As prospective students navigate a more complex and digital-first search process, enrollment management leaders are expected to understand how institutions reach, influence, and convert students across multiple channels.
These emerging skills point to a vice president of enrollment management who is comfortable working with data, technology, and market insights to lead enrollment outcomes in a rapidly evolving landscape.
The Bottom Line
The enrollment funnel does not appear overnight, and neither does the leadership pipeline that sustains it. As enrollment management continues to expand in scope and strategic importance, institutions cannot assume that the next generation of leaders will emerge organically. Cultivating future leaders — in mentorship, skill-building, and succession planning — requires investment and intentionality.
The vice president of enrollment management role is shifting, with increasing emphasis on analytics, technology, and cross-campus leadership. Tomorrow’s enrollment leaders must lead from the intersection of many institutional priorities: connecting recruitment strategy with academics, finance, student success, and the broader education ecosystem from secondary schools to local communities.
Institutions that invest in the development of enrollment leaders will be best positioned to respond to future challenges and to compete in an increasingly dynamic higher education landscape.
For further reading on this topic, see Eduventures’ Enrollment Maturity Model Report, which provides a framework for institutions to assess their enrollment team’s sophistication or “maturity.”
