Judi Byers was most recently Executive Director of Admissions & Financial Aid at Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business. In this role, she led strategic recruitment and admissions for the Two-Year and One Year Residential MBA programs in Ithaca, New York. Prior to Cornell, Judi served as Director of Admissions for the graduate business programs at American University’s Kogod School of Business and successfully led student recruitment and enrollment for the Full-time, Professional, and Dual Degree MBA programs as well as six Specialized Master’s programs.
A creative and analytical leader with more than 16 years of experience in graduate management education admissions, her data-driven and forward-looking approach to admissions has enabled successful collaborations with numerous colleagues throughout each university community she has served and has resulted in more modernized and systematic admissions operations and activities that provide information-rich experiences for candidates. At Cornell, she introduced several fundamental enhancements to the candidate evaluation and notification processes to include the alignment of scholarship consideration and final decision review, a shift to digital decision notification and application management, as well as the implementation of technology solutions to improve the presentation and scheduling of admissions events and candidate interviews.
Judi’s passion for the candidate experience has also led to many admissions programming innovations as well as expanded diversity admissions activities to attract and enroll exceptional and diverse student talent. At American University, she partnered with faculty program directors and program management leadership to develop specialized programming and outreach efforts including a combined Bachelor's/Masters admissions strategy to retain top undergraduate talent. Leveraging student and alumni engagement while at Cornell, she created new opportunities for these community members to host meet & greet events, provide candidate interview preparation support during annual diversity hosting programs, and connect meaningfully with candidates at various touch points throughout the admissions process. Understanding the unique priorities of One-year candidates, she implemented candidate consultations to complement the program’s existing eligibility-check process and partnered with program management peers to develop Accelerate Johnson, an admitted student program that highlights the One-Year experience and supports student enrollment and onboarding. In line with the strategic decision to align scholarship consideration and decision review, she led the redesign of the Scholarship Weekend Program in collaboration with Johnson Leadership Programs and launched Johnson Leadership Exploration and Assessment Day (LEAD) events, a series of evaluative events that enable the annual selection of 25 Roy H. Park Leadership Fellows and is required for fellowship selection.
A two-time alumna of American University, Judi holds a BS in Business Administration from the Kogod School of Business and an MS in Health Promotion Management from the School of Education, Teaching and Health.