I’m Aaron
Edgell.

I started in digital marketing, working on search, websites, content, and getting new customers. Over time, my job grew into building teams, leading marketing organizations, and tying growth plans to financial and operating decisions.

At a university system, I built in-house performance marketing and web development teams, then led marketing across the whole system. I’ve also led North American marketing for an online education company and worked on product marketing and member engagement at a healthcare company.

Today, I lead growth strategy at a private university, where I run brand and enrollment marketing and the technology behind them.

Across those roles, I’ve become most interested in why organizations often can’t do what they say they want to do. A strategy needs people, money, an owner, and a way to tell if it’s working.

That’s the work I enjoy. Getting those pieces to work together.

Growth needs the right conditions.

I start by asking why we’re getting the results we’re getting. The answer might be the positioning, the customer experience, an incentive, a missing skill on the team, or a decision nobody has made.

Knowing the cause tells you which work to do. You still have to do it.

Focus is a leadership responsibility.

I care as much about what a team is being asked to stop doing as what it’s being asked to start.

Before adding another project, I want to ask: what are we doing that isn’t on the path?

You can see the real strategy in where the money goes.

A priority only matters if it changes where time and money go.

I think spending carefully is part of caring about the mission. It means being honest about what’s working, what we can afford to keep, and what gets the next dollar.

The way we grow matters.

I want big results. I also want the team to be better at the end than when we started.

And I don’t want people to have to work in a constant rush to get there.

Writing is how I think. It’s how I make sense of what happens at work and outside it.

A lot of what I write is about growth and leadership, because that’s where I spend my days. But I write about anything I’m trying to understand. Some pieces are long. Some are a few lines.

Read my writing →

I earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics, with a minor in Accounting, from Brigham Young University–Idaho and completed the two-year Harvard Business Analytics Program.

I spend time with my family, read widely, train, and get outdoors whenever I can.

The question I ask at work is one I ask at home too:

How do I keep growing without losing what matters most?

Get in touch →