About Dr. Kasandrea Sereno
I see the systems behind the experience.
Higher education executive, strategist, speaker, and community builder focused on creating better systems, stronger institutions, and more human experiences.
Leadership Philosophy
Outcomes follow systems—not intentions.
Institutions are filled with people who care deeply about students. Yet students still encounter disconnected processes, conflicting information, difficult handoffs, and systems that require them to do the work of making the institution function.
My work focuses on the space between intention and experience: how people, policies, processes, technology, data, communication, and organizational structures combine to shape outcomes.
Better results become possible when we stop asking people to compensate for broken systems and start redesigning the systems themselves.
Why It Matters to Me
Higher education changed the trajectory of my life.
I experienced foster care, financed my own education, and learned firsthand how much persistence college can require from students whose lives do not fit neatly within institutional assumptions.
Education created opportunity, but navigating it also revealed how often institutional systems depend on students already knowing what questions to ask, where to go, and how to recover when something goes wrong.
That experience continues to shape how I lead: with attention to the students most likely to be overlooked and a commitment to designing institutions that do not require extraordinary resilience simply to access ordinary support.
Students should not have to become experts in our institutions before our institutions become effective for them.
Professional Journey
From advising individual students to redesigning systems.
My career has remained grounded in student experience while expanding across leadership, organizational strategy, technology, enrollment, and institutional transformation.
Dean of Retention & Engagement
Tulsa Community College
Led advising, career services, testing, orientation, student support, retention strategy, and cross-functional experience work across a complex multi-campus institution.
Assistant Director of Academic Advising
University of South Florida
Led advising operations, staff development, performance strategy, career pathways, and technology-enabled student support.
Senior Academic Advisor
University of South Florida
Managed a large student caseload while developing programs, internships, communication strategies, and scalable advising practices.
Founder & Executive Director
Higher Ed Social
Built a global professional community connecting more than 13,800 higher education communication professionals in over 80 countries.
Education
Leadership informed by policy, organizations, and practice.
Organizational Leadership & Educational Policy
Vanderbilt University
Peabody College of Education and Human Development
Business Administration
University of South Florida
Business strategy, organizational decision-making, and management
Curriculum & Instruction
University of South Florida
Student development, learning, and educational practice
Leadership Beyond the Institution
Building communities around shared challenges.
NACADA
National leadership focused on technology in advising and supporting students with experience in foster care.
- Foster Care Commission Chair
- Technology in Advising Commission Chair
- International and national conference presenter
Higher Ed Social
Founded in 2015 as a space for higher education social media and marketing professionals to connect, learn, and build the field together.
- 13,800+ members
- Members in more than 80 countries
- Conferences, awards, resources, and professional learning
Additional Perspective
Strategy grounded in the whole institution.
A global perspective
Dual U.S. and Italian citizen with experience presenting across the United States and Europe and authorization to work in both.
Let’s build systems worthy of the people using them.
Explore consulting, fractional leadership, speaking, or a custom engagement designed around your institution’s needs.