Explore Our Services
Our Work, In Practice and Partnership
At Edgefield, we work with leaders, leadership teams, and organizations in higher education who are navigating an era of sustained disruption—intensifying scrutiny around value and outcomes, growing complexity in governance and operations, and increasing expectations with fewer clear answers. Long-standing structures, roles, and decision-making models are being tested, while leaders are asked to respond quickly, align across silos, and lead people through change without losing trust, talent, or mission. This moment requires organizational courage and human-centered change at scale.
Our work is grounded in data and research, shaped by lived leadership experience, and focused on co-creating strategies and solutions that help organizations move forward with clarity and confidence. We partner with leaders to build capacity, strengthen alignment, and redesign systems and supports so institutions can deliver on their commitments—to learners, to communities, and to the people doing the work. The four areas below reflect how we support leaders and teams as they make sense of this moment and lead meaningful, sustainable change..
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Change holds when people are centered, evidence is trusted, and choices are made with intention. That’s how winning strategies are made.
At Edgefield, our consulting and strategic partnership work is grounded in three principles:
Human-centered by design
We start with the lived experiences of the people doing the work and the learners and communities they serve. When people see themselves in the strategy, they can carry it forward.Research- and data-informed
We integrate institutional data, national research, and field-tested practices to move beyond opinion and assumption. Evidence helps organizations name reality clearly and decide what matters most.Aligned for action
We focus on building alignment across mission, values, structures, and resources so strategy becomes executable—not aspirational. The result is forward movement that sustains, on behalf of all the people organizations are honored to serve. -
Coaching with Edgefield is a thought partnership grounded in trust, reflection, and forward movement. This work is designed for mid- to senior-level leaders navigating complexity, change, and responsibility—where identity, lived experience, and professional role are deeply intertwined, and decisions carry real consequences for people and institutions.
Our coaching approach is human-centered, equity-minded, and values-aligned, informed by research, practice, and lived leadership experience. We create space to examine context, power, and systems alongside personal leadership choices—helping leaders build clarity, capacity, and confidence to lead with organizational courage in ways that are authentic, inclusive, and sustainable.
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Edgefield designs and facilitates workshops that help leadership teams rethink how higher education is organized, led, and experienced—with the modern learner at the center. Our work is built for institutions ready to move beyond legacy structures and toward supports that reflect how people actually live, learn, work, and persist today. We create the conditions for leaders to slow down, surface hard truths, and build the collective capacity required for meaningful change.
Our facilitation is human-centered, equity-minded, and grounded in data and research. We work with teams to co-create clarity, alignment, and readiness for action—connecting mission and values to redesigned systems, roles, and practices that better serve learners and the communities institutions exist to support. The goal is not a momentary breakthrough, but sustained progress: organizations prepared to lead with courage and deliver outcomes that matter in a changing higher education landscape.
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Julie Payne-Kirchmeier delivers keynotes that energize rooms, challenge assumptions, and move people to think—and act—differently. With more than two decades of senior leadership experience across large public research universities, private elite institutions, and regional comprehensives, Julie brings a rare blend of strategic insight, lived experience, and human connection to every stage.
Whether speaking to an intimate leadership retreat or a conference hall of thousands, Julie engages audiences with clarity, warmth, and conviction. Her keynotes focus on redesigning higher education for the modern learner, leading with organizational courage, strengthening student success, and navigating change with purpose and integrity. She connects data and research with real stories from the field, making complex challenges accessible, urgent, and actionable. Audiences leave not just inspired, but better equipped—clearer about what this moment requires and confident in their role in shaping what comes next.