Designing the Future of Higher Education — Together
Our aspiration in creating 1088 Advisors was simple: to be the consultants and trusted advisors we needed when we were serving in university leadership roles ourselves.
1088 Advisors is a university strategy firm founded by former senior university leaders and staffed with a deep bench of experts in a variety of fields. We help presidents, academic leaders, and boards set direction, make consequential choices, and turn ambitious ideas into workable plans.
Our team has led strategy, research growth, institutional change, and new ventures inside major research universities. We built 1088 to bring clients the judgment, candor, and practical support we needed most when we held those roles.
A Pivotal Moment
Universities are facing converging challenges in funding and enrollment, changing expectations from students and partners, and questions about public trust and their value to society. What used to work in higher education frequently no longer works, or won’t for much longer. But new approaches and new models require universities to work differently.
We created 1088 Advisors to support universities in designing the future of higher education. Our work combines data analysis, peer benchmarking, financial and scenario modeling, and working closely with the people who will carry a strategy forward. We surface the tradeoffs, test options against institutional realities, and help leaders decide what to pursue, what to change, and how to proceed.
We also believe that the future of universities requires deeper and more productive partnerships beyond the university. Industry, philanthropy, government, and civic organizations bring capital, capabilities, and urgent problems; universities bring talent, research, and a mission of service. The hard work is aligning those strengths around a shared objective, clear commitments, and a way of working that respects academic independence while delivering results.
Operators & Experts
We have worked inside the institutions we advise. That experience gives us a practical understanding of the distinct culture, academic priorities, financial challenges, and politics of universities — as well as the distance between what looks compelling on paper and what an institution can realistically accomplish, and on what timeline. We engage faculty and administrators early, respect shared governance, and shape recommendations around each institution’s mission and culture.
The “Advisors” in our name is deliberate. Alongside our core team, we draw on a network of advisors and specialists from leading research universities, industry, and government to bring tailored expertise to each engagement. Their experience helps us test a university’s plans against what has worked and not worked at other institutions, bring the right expertise to decisions, and go as deep as the work requires. Each engagement draws on the mix of people the challenge demands.
Areas of Expertise
Our work spans four connected areas:
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Strategic vision and planning; new colleges and programs; national and international expansion; board strategy; new funding and revenue models; and strategies for transformative gifts.
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Academic planning and redesign; business model analysis; shared services; faculty recruitment and development; faculty structures; and academic medical center and healthcare strategy.
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Sponsored research growth and funding diversification; new centers and institutes; national security initiatives; and research with public and social impact.
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Innovation asset mapping; commercialization improvement; industry partnerships; and regional innovation ecosystems.
Core 1088 Team
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Jasmin Patel, PhD
Co-Founder
Jasmin brings two decades of leadership at the intersection of higher education, industry, and entrepreneurship. She has built research and innovation ecosystems and advised university leaders and boards on strategy and partnerships through periods of institutional change.
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Ken Olliff
Co-Founder
Ken brings twenty years of leadership across academia, industry, innovation, and philanthropy. He has advised presidents and boards, built research enterprises, and developed partnerships that turn institutional ambition into action.
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Manju Hegde, PhD
Founding Advisor
Manju is a technologist, entrepreneur, and academic whose work spans semiconductors, computing architectures, wireless communications, and commercialization. He has connected university research with commercial enterprise to develop companies, standards, and technology platforms.
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Hamza Iqbal
Chief Data Scientist
Hamza is a data scientist whose work spans applied AI, research engineering, and institutional analytics. With a mathematics degree from the University of Missouri and graduate training in computer science at Washington University in St. Louis, he brings experience across industry and research — turning data into insights that help institutions understand their strengths, identify partnerships, and advance research.
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Marisa Schafer
Communications Strategy and Design
Marisa has worked in various aspects of social impact for more than two decades. Whether helping individuals, corporations, or foundations connect with and support global nonprofits or marketing children's books, compelling and clear communication has been the consistent thread across her overall efforts to leave things better than she found them.
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Deena Iqbal
Operational Associate
Deena graduated from Williams College with a psychology degree and a concentration in Neuroscience. She has experience ranging from undergraduate research in behavioral neuroscience to teaching in middle schools. She assists 1088 Advisors through various administrative and organizational tasks.
Strategic Partnership with HKS
1088 Advisors partners with HKS, a global design and research firm, when an engagement calls for integrated strategy, research, and design. HKS brings expertise in organizational ethnography, user research, and the built environment. Together, we can connect institutional choices with the experiences and spaces that make them real.
David Alworth, PhD
Founding Advisor, 1088 Advisors; Principal, Innovation Sector, HKS
David works with senior leaders to solve complex challenges and create a clearer path to the future – using design to drive outcomes that improve lives, strengthen communities, and shape the places where people live, work, and gather. His work focuses on education, community development, sustainable real estate, and public health. Clients include governments, foundations, impact investors, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, and mission-oriented businesses.
Selected Clients & Leadership Experience
Examples of Questions We Help Leaders Answer
What is the optimal academic enterprise model and business plan for a new international branch campus?
How can a university grow its research enterprise to achieve R1 status?
How can universities reimagine their relationship with industry around teaching and learning, research, and commercialization?
How can universities and philanthropists build mutually beneficial collaborations that lead to transformative gifts?
How can universities mobilize their talent and research expertise to build a regional technology cluster?
What does a rigorous innovation-ecosystem diagnostic look like for a university deciding where to invest in entrepreneurship, tech transfer, and regional partnerships?
What governance model lets a university and its affiliated health system make aligned decisions on research investment, clinical priorities, and shared infrastructure?
Frequently Asked Questions
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1088 refers to the founding year of the University of Bologna, widely regarded as the oldest continually operating university in the Western world. It honors higher education’s long history, while reflecting our belief that we are now at a pivotal moment of systemic change that is shaping the future of higher education.
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Our team has led strategy and change from inside research universities. We combine that operating experience with rigorous analysis, an external perspective, and direct attention to implementation within the academic context.
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We help institutions with growth, academic and operating models, research, innovation, and commercialization. Engagements are shaped around the decision at hand, from setting a strategy to developing a practical path for a new venture or partnership.
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Universities are our focus, but we also work with industry, government, and civic organizations that partner with them.
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Both. We engage the people needed to understand the issue, test options, and build support for action, while working within each institution’s governance processes and culture.
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We use data science and AI where they help us explore evidence and test possibilities. Experienced judgment remains essential to interpreting results and deciding what will work in a university setting.
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We work alongside institutional teams and through established decision processes. We design recommendations with implementation in mind, so the work can be used after an engagement ends.
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At the start of an engagement, we agree with the client on the outcomes and measures that matter for its goals. We track progress together and tailor the work products to the decisions and actions they need to support.
Contact Us
We’d love to connect. Contact Ken at ko@1088advisors.com or Jasmin at jp@1088advisors.com.
Headquartered in St. Louis, MO