Bethany Zecher Sutton is a certified leadership and career coach who specializes in leadership development for individuals in higher education and nonprofit organizations.
Bethany’s career includes more than 25 years’ professional experience in higher education, with expertise in strategic planning, staff and leadership development, non-profit management, program planning and implementation, writing, editing, and fundraising. Her collaborative style demonstrates her strengths in synthesizing information; problem solving; coordinating programs, activities, and people; communicating, and orientation to detail.
Bethany has served as a consultant for Academic Search, a national organization with a focus on identifying and cultivating leadership within higher education. Previously, she served for 17 years as a member of the leadership team at the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). At AAC&U, she played a central role in the association’s work to advance quality and equity in undergraduate education, working with colleagues across the entire spectrum of the higher education community. Prior to AAC&U, Bethany worked in the Provost’s Office at the University of Pennsylvania.
Bethany’s consulting includes work with HERS (Higher Education Resources Services), a nationally-known leadership development program for women in higher education. An alumna of the HERS Leadership Institute, Bethany provides guidance and expertise to Institute participants on a range of topics, including navigating leadership transitions, career planning, organizational change, program planning and implementation, and leadership development. She also works with WICHE (Western Interstate Compact for Higher Education) on a Mellon-funded initiative to provide leadership development for faculty in the humanities.
In November 2022, Bethany was elected to the School Board for Arlington Public Schools (four year term; 2023-2026). An active community leader, Bethany chaired the Arlington Public Schools’ Advisory Council for Teacher and Learning; has been a member of the Columbia Pike Community Advisory Council; and led an all-volunteer food pantry during the pandemic at a Title I elementary school in Arlington. Bethany was the 2020 recipient of the Distinguished County Service Award from Volunteer Arlington & the Leadership Center for Excellence and the 2021 Distinguished Citizen Award from Arlington Public Schools.
Bethany holds a graduate certificate in Leadership Coaching from the Georgetown University Center for Transformational Leadership and is an Associate Certified Coach (International Coach Federation certification). She completed the HERS Leadership Institute, a two-week intensive leadership development program, in 2013. Bethany earned a BA in history from the University of Mary Washington and an MA in history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.