Why Clients Hire Sher

Sher Downing, PhD has spent 30+ years helping people and institutions move from where they are to where they're going — including 30+ years in higher education and corporate training, with C-suite roles at R1 research institutions. That's the throughline in her coaching today: she doesn't just advise from the outside, she's guided the actual transition, over and over, at scale.

During the pandemic, her company, Downing EdTech Consulting, helped clients move more than 2,000 courses online almost overnight — coordinating national and international teams through a transition most organizations weren't prepared for, retraining staff and standing up new virtual operations under real pressure. That same pattern runs through her institutional work: leading teams through shifts in delivery model, structure, and strategy across large education networks including Apollo Group institutions, federal and state government agencies, and wellness-industry organizations, alongside global companies, small businesses, and individual professionals building something of their own.

It's why she now coaches people through their own version of that same shift: higher ed professionals moving from an institutional role into a practice of their own, and entrepreneurs learning to run a business through a caregiving season rather than waiting for an easier one. Her thought leadership follows the same thread — an international speaker across 40+ conferences and industry events, from the ICDE World Conference in Dublin to the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum, and the author of Navigating The Entrepreneur Sandwich™.

Clients hire Sher because she's helped people move through hard transitions before — not because she's read about it.