Most people assume the path to executive support runs through administrative roles, corporate internships, or office management. Kelly Collins New Hampshire took a different route. She spent two decades leading schools, managing buildings, navigating district politics, and supporting staff through the kinds of institutional pressures that don’t appear in any job description. Then she walked into a C-Suite executive support role and didn’t miss a step.
That trajectory isn’t a coincidence. The skills that make someone effective in educational leadership map almost directly onto what high-level executive support requires.
Managing People Who Are All Convinced They’re the Priority
In a school building, everyone’s need is urgent. A teacher with a class management issue, a parent in the front office, a district administrator on the phone, a student in crisis: all of them are there at the same time, and all of them have a legitimate reason to want your attention right now.
Principals learn quickly that triaging those demands is not optional. You develop a read for what’s actually urgent versus what feels urgent to the person in front of you. You learn to move someone forward without dismissing them. You communicate quickly and honestly because the building doesn’t stop while you have a conversation.
Collins brought that skill directly into C-Suite support. The specifics are different; the dynamic is the same. Stakeholders at every level of an organization believe their request deserves the executive’s time, and someone has to make those calls every day.
Cross-Functional Work Is Not a Corporate Concept
One of the more persistent myths about educational leadership is that it’s internally focused — a single building, a contained system. Anyone who has actually run a school knows that’s wrong.
A Principal coordinates with district administration, local government, parent organizations, vendors, community partners, and the school board, often simultaneously, on issues ranging from budget allocation to safety protocols to capital improvements. Collins spent more than two decades doing that work in New Hampshire, which means she arrived in the corporate sector already familiar with cross-functional collaboration at a real level.
The Human Side of Organizational Efficiency
Process improvement in educational settings sounds less corporate than it does in a technology company, but the work is identical. You look at what’s not working, identify why, figure out what would work better, and make the change while keeping the people involved informed and on board. You do it with limited resources, under scrutiny, and with stakeholders who have strong opinions.
Collins was nominated for Principal of the Year in New Hampshire in 2023, in part because of how she led people through change. That recognition reflects something specific: the ability to improve systems while maintaining the trust and the culture of the people who use them.
Why the Transfer Works
The argument for educators in executive support is not sentimental. It’s operational. People who have led schools have been accountable for other people’s time and performance. They’ve managed sensitive information under legal and ethical obligations. They’ve maintained composure in public when things went wrong. They’ve built relationships with people who disagreed with them and still needed to work together.
Kelly Collins New Hampshire professionals bring all of that into corporate environments, along with a clear-eyed understanding of what organizations actually need to function well. The title changes. The building changes. The work does not.