Eszti Major-Rohrer is an accomplished technology executive whose career reflects more than 17 years of leadership at the intersection of higher education, educational technology, product strategy, and organizational transformation. Known for connecting institutional priorities with practical technology strategies, she has built her career around helping organizations navigate complexity, modernize critical systems, and create environments where people and technology can work together more effectively. Her leadership philosophy is grounded in service, innovation, integrity, and the belief that sustainable transformation requires both strategic vision and meaningful stakeholder engagement. Eszti brings valuable leadership experience navigating both Chapter 13 and Chapter 11 bankruptcies in the private sector, giving her firsthand insight into the early warning signs, operational pressures, and critical decisions organizations face during periods of financial distress. During these challenging periods, she was also responsible for managing the customer base, strengthening her expertise in partnership management, customer engagement, and maintaining trusted relationships while delivering outcomes under significant pressure.
Today, Eszti serves as Senior Director of Student & Academic Systems at Ohio University, where she provides executive leadership for the university’s student information systems, CRM ecosystem, academic technologies, and enterprise applications portfolio. She leads an organization of 32 professionals spanning product management, business analysis, software engineering, ERP development, integrations, and enterprise application support. In this role, she is helping unify previously distinct technology areas under a shared portfolio approach, establishing governance and prioritization practices, developing multi-year technology roadmaps, and guiding investment decisions designed to advance university priorities across Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management, Student Affairs, and Information Technology.
Her current responsibilities build upon years of progressive leadership within Ohio University. As Senior Director of Teaching & Learning Technologies, Eszti managed a $6 million portfolio and led 23 professionals responsible for academic technology strategy, learning spaces, instructional technology services, and enterprise teaching and learning platforms. She served on the Office of Information Technology leadership team during a significant period of organizational transformation, contributing to decisions involving organizational design, workforce planning, resource allocation, talent development, succession planning, and service strategy. Her ability to establish trust among faculty, academic leaders, governance groups, administrators, and technology professionals has been especially important in initiatives where progress depended upon influence and collaboration rather than positional authority.
Among Eszti’s significant higher-education accomplishments is her leadership of Ohio University’s transition to the Canvas learning management system, an enterprise initiative requiring executive sponsorship, governance, communication, change management, and institution-wide stakeholder coordination. She also co-led the university’s first generative AI pilot, contributing to an institutional foundation for responsible AI adoption in teaching and learning. Her portfolio leadership has extended to Student Evaluation of Teaching governance, enterprise vendor partnerships, technology procurements, and digital course-material initiatives that generated more than $9 million in student savings. These experiences have strengthened her ability to evaluate technology not simply as infrastructure, but as a strategic resource capable of advancing student success, operational effectiveness, and institutional performance.
Before assuming senior leadership positions within higher education, Eszti developed substantial commercial and product expertise in the education technology sector through a progressive career with Ed Map, Inc. She advanced through roles spanning client services, operations, advisory services, professional services, product and service management, and ultimately senior business development leadership. Her responsibilities included strategic client relationships, SaaS partnerships, market research, product management, customer retention, implementation strategy, and business development. This progression provided her with an unusually comprehensive view of the EdTech lifecycle—from identifying institutional problems and understanding customer requirements to developing products, managing implementations, building partnerships, and supporting sustainable commercial growth.
During her tenure with Ed Map, Eszti led strategy and operations for a significant portion of the company’s client portfolio, directed cross-functional initiatives, and helped institutions navigate changes in digital content and educational technology. She conceived, launched, and scaled a profitable professional services business serving higher-education institutions nationwide and later helped lead the company’s transition toward a Platform-as-a-Service business model, contributing to improvements in gross margin. Her experience on the vendor side of higher education remains an important dimension of her executive perspective. She understands both how technology companies develop and bring solutions to market and how universities evaluate, govern, purchase, implement, and ultimately derive value from those solutions.
Eszti’s leadership capabilities extend well beyond technology. Her expertise encompasses organizational transformation, executive leadership, strategic planning, product portfolio management, budgeting and forecasting, vendor strategy, contract negotiation, change management, partnership consulting, business development, financial analysis, organizational effectiveness, and talent development. She has managed multimillion-dollar portfolios, developed governance frameworks, led complex RFP and procurement processes, and built teams capable of operating across traditional organizational boundaries. Her combination of business and technology experience allows her to approach challenges through multiple lenses, balancing innovation with financial stewardship, organizational readiness, customer needs, and long-term sustainability.
Her academic and international background further enriches that perspective. Eszti earned a Master of Business Administration from Ohio University and a Master of Corporate Finance and Accounting from the University of Pécs in Hungary, where she also completed undergraduate studies in business and economics. Her professional development includes the HERS Leadership Institute, ITIL 4 Foundation, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Certified Agile Leadership programs, and Strategic Selling. Originally from Hungary, she is fluent in Hungarian and conversational in German and has professional experience involving international consulting and cross-cultural collaboration. She also spent many years teaching Hungarian culture and language at Ohio University, connecting her international heritage with the university’s educational mission.
Throughout her career, Eszti has maintained a close connection to the people ultimately affected by technology decisions. Her experience as an adjunct instructor provided direct exposure to student and faculty needs while she simultaneously led technology services supporting those communities at institutional scale. She has also shared her professional experience through presentations, including engagement with the EDUCAUSE community. That combination of practitioner, educator, product leader, consultant, and executive perspectives enables her to translate between audiences that may approach the same challenge from very different starting points.
Board service represents a natural next chapter in Eszti’s professional journey. After years of working both within higher education and alongside institutions as an education technology vendor and consultant, she is interested in applying that accumulated experience to new organizational challenges. She has long been fascinated by the questions boards ask, the competing priorities they must balance, and the responsibility they carry for helping organizations navigate periods of uncertainty and transformation. She is particularly interested in opportunities involving education technology and higher education, where her experience with institutional strategy, enterprise technology, product management, financial stewardship, partnerships, and organizational change can contribute to thoughtful governance and informed strategic conversations.
At the center of Eszti’s professional identity is an ability to connect strategy with execution and innovation with institutional purpose. She has repeatedly worked in environments where meaningful progress required building consensus among groups with different objectives, creating clarity from complexity, and helping people see how their individual priorities connect to a larger organizational mission. Whether guiding an enterprise technology transformation, developing a new product or service, advising executive leadership, negotiating with vendors, or developing emerging leaders, she brings curiosity, discipline, financial awareness, and a collaborative mindset to the work. As she expands her contribution into board and advisory service, Eszti offers organizations a multidimensional perspective shaped by technology, education, business, finance, product development, and international experience.
Character:
Eszti leads with integrity, service, curiosity, and a strong sense of responsibility to the organizations and communities she serves. She demonstrates her values by investing in people, building trusted relationships, and approaching difficult organizational challenges with respect for differing perspectives.
Knowledge:
She combines deep knowledge of higher education and educational technology with expertise in enterprise systems, product management, financial planning, vendor strategy, governance, and organizational transformation. Her experience on both the institutional and commercial sides of EdTech gives her a broad understanding of how technology decisions affect customers, employees, partners, students, faculty, and organizational performance.
Strategic:
Eszti approaches strategy as the disciplined connection between organizational priorities, people, resources, technology, and measurable outcomes. Her experience developing enterprise roadmaps, managing multimillion-dollar portfolios, establishing governance models, and guiding transformation enables her to examine both immediate challenges and their longer-term organizational implications.
Communication:
Skilled at translating complex technology and business issues into conversations that diverse stakeholders can understand and act upon. Her experience working with executives, faculty governance groups, technology teams, institutional leaders, vendors, clients, and students has strengthened her ability to build alignment and move complex initiatives forward through thoughtful communication.
