Dan Holestine is a growth-focused and transformational executive delivering entrepreneurial and visionary leadership that defines business, operational, and market strategies building organizational and operational structures to drive superior performance. He develops integrated action plans ensuring organizational vision and purpose, while leveraging positive and sustainable culture change. Dan is skilled in utilizing data and analytics along with strong business acumen to lead strategy, product, program, consumer experience development, driving the creative articulation of the brand vision. He excels at establishing and cementing relationships with clients, C-suite partners, and Board of Directors as a valued and trusted advisor who delivers practical and impactful solutions that surpass goals and expectations. He builds, mentors, and leads high-performing teams through creating a collaborative culture that values individual skills, inspires confidence, and empowers members to deliver exceptional outcomes. He operates at the intersection of operations, marketing, full-stack sales knowledge and experience, technology, and analytics. Dan is known for unflinching ethics and values and remarkable turnaround leadership. He is described as a charismatic leader driving scale and growth from start-up to mid-large size companies.

Dan escalated his executive career through a variety of experiences. To name a few, Dan was the National Marketing Director at DeVry University and also the Database Marketing Manager and Primary Research at Victoria’s Secret Direct. Next as VP of Marketing at American Career College and West Coast University, he developed new brands for both schools from scratch, creating campaigns and expanding revenues more than 2x for 6 campuses in 3 years. Dan then transitioned to the Leapfrog Group as Vice President of the Incubator Group and led the agency’s effort to expand revenues into education and the auto industry verticals, working with contacts at Ford Direct, DeVry, Kia, Auto Nation, and CEC.

In a bold move to the American College of Education, Dan served as the COO and SVP, Marketing and Enrollment. For these five years, he transformed the enterprise, creating structure out of chaos and profit from declining revenue. He was responsible for a $15M budget, a $30M P&L, 75 remote employees, and the divisions of Marketing, Enrollment, Admissions, Registration and Student Services, IT, and Analytics. He was the first hire after a new growth initiative. Dan owned 100% of revenue and over 50% of expense decisions. He advanced from being a component of the business to an integral leader running the organization and ending tenure as a thriving COO. He imparted calm and enthusiasm after a downturn, rebuilding culture by developing a shared vision and growing the business. He also turned around declining enrollment in a year and infused four years of growth at +20% CAGR while expanding operating margins, increasing valuation 4x plus. In addition, Dan doubled enrollment from 2,300 to 5,000 students while quadrupling EBITDA. Dan also expanded college enrollment, revenue over 2x, and operating margin over 4x. He launched the Ed.D. program and grew to 500+ students. Dan also eliminated 3rd party leads, developing a sustainable brand and expanding digital marketing programs smartly, skyrocketing enrollment productivity from 12 to 34 enrollments per admissions rep per term and dropping cost per acquisition 5-7%. Last but not least, he researched and partnered with Climb Credit, developing an extremely affordable private student loan program, lifting enrollment 20% in a year with very limited risk to the balance sheet of the college.

Currently, Dan is operating as an Interim COO and CMO for multiple domestic and international organizations in France, China, India and Costa Rica in education, technology, and service start-ups at wHole Marketing Solutions. His wide breadth and diverse experience allows for sole practitioner or team leadership success, leveraging additional resources as needed with experience in K-12, Higher Ed, Bootcamps and Executive Education. Here he provides high-level strategy through interim CEO, CMO and COO roles. He partners with start-ups to $100MM organizations consulting for revenue growth and operational efficiency.