Dennis Holtschneider, EdD
Consultant
EducationHarvard
Ed.D. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy, Certificate in Health Care Strategy
Mary Immaculate Seminary, PA
M.Div. in Theology, MA in Moral Theology
Niagara University
BA in Mathematics
Harvard
Ed.D. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy, Certificate in Health Care Strategy
Mary Immaculate Seminary, PA
M.Div. in Theology, MA in Moral Theology
Niagara University
BA in Mathematics
Contact
Dennis Holtschneider works with executive and governance leaders on matters of strategy, organizational change, and leadership development.
He is the recent past president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (2019-2024). The organization represents its members to Congress and the Administration, conducts research on the sector, identifies and trains future leaders, and runs an in-house consulting practice – ACCU Advisory Services – to assist universities to strengthen their operations and become more financially resilient.
Audit Chair and then Board Chair of Ascension Health, the nation’s largest non-profit health system, Dennis presided over the reorganization of the $26 billion company and its board into Ascension, an umbrella over the multiple health systems from which it was formed and 12 additional health-related companies, a design which assigned the profits from the for-profit firms to fund the care of the poor. As EVP/COO, from 2017-2019, he oversaw corporate strategy, government relations, IT, and stood up a new business applying AI technology to corporate operations.
Dennis served as president of DePaul University from 2004-2017, where he grew the university from 20,000 to 25,000 students, increased its bond-rating from Baa1 to A2, and grew its endowment sixfold. He added 70 new academic programs, rebuilt facilities for all ten of its colleges and partnered with the city’s convention center to build a new athletic arena downtown. He closed its suburban locations and opened an online operation where fully half of DePaul’s faculty were teaching online by the time he left in 2017, for which U.S. News and World Report named DePaul among its Top 25 Most Innovative Universities.
He is co-founder of the Institute of Global Homeless (IGH) which assists cities on six continents to address street homelessness, and which also serves as the primary advisory to the United Nations on this topic. He has served on numerous boards, including the St. Louis Symphony, where he led its Strategy Committee. For many years, he has lectured on strategy and governance at Harvard University’s Programs in Professional Education.