The Bentonville Institute of Technology seeks a creative, strategic, and collaborative founding Vice President for Strategic Communications and Marketing (VPSCM) to establish the institution's brand, build its reputation, and create an integrated strategic communications and marketing function from the ground up. A complete leadership profile can be found here and above.

As a founding executive, the VPSCM will serve as a key member of the leadership team and help shape the institution's trajectory during its formative years. Launching its first undergraduate cohort in Fall 2029, the Bentonville Institute of Technology (BIT), located in Bentonville, Arkansas, is a new private, nonprofit institution offering an intensive three-year, project-based STEM-focused degree across five eight-week terms per year, with concentrations in Mobility, Automation & Robotics, Health Systems, and Energy Systems.

This opportunity is grounded in an ambitious institutional vision to create a new model of post-secondary education — one that expands opportunity, strengthens the economy of Northwest Arkansas, and offers a nationally significant approach to 21st-century higher education. The Institute will combine rigorous STEM learning with business, entrepreneurship, design, communication, and human context to prepare students to become adaptable builders, innovators, and leaders.

The Institute's flexible, stackable academic model will include bachelor's degrees and certificate programs aligned with high-growth industries and emerging workforce needs. Students will learn by building — moving between classrooms, studios, laboratories, industry-sponsored projects, and a signature environment for prototyping, experimentation, and applied problem-solving. Strong partnerships with businesses, schools, healthcare organizations, entrepreneurs, and civic and philanthropic leaders will keep the curriculum relevant while creating meaningful pathways for experiential learning, employment, and lifelong education.

Reporting to Inaugural President David Mazyck, Ph.D., and serving as a member of the executive leadership team and as a trusted communications counselor to the President, the VPSCM will shape how BIT is understood by prospective students and families, philanthropic funders, higher-education peers, accreditors, and the Northwest Arkansas community. This role extends well beyond communications and campaign execution. As the institution's chief storyteller and steward of reputation, the VPSCM will translate BIT's distinctive educational model into a compelling institutional narrative, operationalize its brand identity, and build the visibility and credibility that support both the Fall 2029 launch and the institution's long-term success.

For the founding VPSCM, the mandate is both strategic and deeply consequential: to make the promise of a new institution tangible and persuasive before it has an established reputation or a graduating class. Central to this work is a dual-audience marketing strategy — inspiring prospective students and families to consider BIT while earning the confidence of the secondary school counselors and independent educational consultants whose recommendations influence their choices. In close partnership with the Vice President for Enrollment Management, this leader will align brand-building and marketing with recruitment priorities, with shared accountability for inquiry quality and funnel volume. The successful candidate will have the rare opportunity to shape how a new university earns trust, demonstrates value, and establishes itself as an additive presence within Northwest Arkansas's higher-education ecosystem.

The VPSCM will build an integrated communications and marketing function spanning institutional storytelling, student- and counselor-directed campaigns, executive and board communications, media relations, and the Institute's website and digital presence. In the early years, this means working with a small staff and personally developing messages, shaping content, launching campaigns, and directing specialized agency and freelance partners without losing narrative control. The VPSCM will also establish the practices and protocols needed to navigate sensitive announcements and reputational risk. Throughout BIT's pre-accreditation and pre–Title IV period, this leader must balance ambition with disciplined accuracy, ensuring that every public statement faithfully reflects the institution's milestones, enrollment status, and accreditation stage. 

BIT is an AI-native institution, with AI woven into how it teaches, operates, and serves students. The VPSCM will pioneer AI-enabled marketing, communications, and enrollment operations — applying it to content development, audience insight, campaign analysis, and engagement — and model fluent, responsible use in daily work. This leader will ensure that AI preserves BIT's authentic institutional voice and strengthens the trust it must earn. The successful candidate will be equally comfortable advising executive leadership on institutional strategy and rolling up their sleeves to execute it. During the Institute's formative years, this executive must thrive in an entrepreneurial environment where sound judgment, thoughtful experimentation, rapid iteration, and disciplined personal execution are essential.

WittKieffer is assisting Bentonville Institute of Technology in this search. Credential review will begin immediately, and the position will remain open until an appointment is made. All applications, nominations, and inquiries are invited. Applications should include, as separate documents, a CV or resume and a letter of interest addressing the themes in the profile.

Application materials should be submitted using WittKieffer’s candidate portal or via the buttons above and below.

Nominations and inquiries can be directed to:

Ashlee Musser, Natalie Song, and Suzanne Teer at BIT-VPComms@WittKieffer.com

Bentonville Institute of Technology is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workplace that is free of discrimination and harassment of any kind. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate.

All offers of employment are contingent on successful completion (where permitted by state law) of a confidentiality agreement and background check. In addition, the employee must provide proper identification verifying eligibility to work in the United States.