At Wrighton Cannon Consulting, LLC, we understand the extraordinary challenges and opportunities university and college leaders face in today’s rapidly evolving higher education landscape. Our mission is to provide exclusive, confidential, and highly personalized advisory services that help empower presidents and board chairs to navigate complex management, governance, strategic, resource development, legal and cultural demands with confidence and agility.

About Wrighton Cannon Consulting, LLC

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Our Advisors

Founded by two seasoned leaders with over five decades of combined experience as university presidents, provosts, and executive vice presidents, Wrighton Cannon Consulting stands apart by dedicating undivided attention to one client at a time. This singular focus enables us to bring deep, experience-informed insights tailored precisely to your institution’s unique mission, culture, and priorities.

Mark S. Wrighton

Mark leverages his 30 years of transformative leadership and groundbreaking research to drive visionary higher education strategy, fundraising excellence, and institutional growth.

 Mark S. Wrighton is a nationally acclaimed academic leader and award-winning chemist who, after serving MIT as provost, led Washington University in St. Louis as Chancellor and George Washington University as President. He brings deep expertise in research and innovation within universities, and the ability to guide complex organizations through strategic growth while respecting their unique cultures and missions. Mark has chaired an array of national-level committees, including the Association of American Universities, addressing many of the most critical issues confronting higher education.

Meet Mark

Michael R. Cannon

Michael is a seasoned lawyer and 23-year university C-suite veteran bringing strong leadership in university and college management, policy development, law, and conflict management.

Michael R. Cannon served as the Executive Vice Chancellor & General Counsel at Washington University in St. Louis for 23 years. A Yale Law-educated Rhodes Scholar, former federal prosecutor and Washington D.C. law firm partner, he seamlessly blends deep expertise, strategic counsel, and conflict-management proficiency to shape management, governance operations, policy development and financial strategies at leading institutions. At Washington University in St. Louis, he guided executive and Board leadership with trusted tactical and strategic advice on legal and management issues, pioneered one of the nation’s first university-wide compliance programs, managed a number of operational departments of the university’s administration, and chaired numerous university-wide search and policy-development committees.

Meet Michael

We tailor our college and university advisory services to your individual needs and develop a custom consulting plan aligned with your institution’s unique mission, culture, and challenges. We work with only one client at a time ensuring that our focus is solely on helping you navigate and reach your leadership goals, and all our work is informed by three “core values” that we bring to the table.

Core Values

Respect for
Tradition

We honor the traditions of faculty governance and institutional autonomy while valuing nimble, effective administrative leadership and guidance. By balancing respect for shared institutional values with forward-looking strategy, we can help institutions adapt, innovate, and thrive in a rapidly evolving and, at times, threatening landscape.

Deep Listening & Collaboration

We build collaborative partnerships rooted in clearly established goals that are co-created with clients, work diligently to properly frame the relevant issues and then drive actionable, context-specific outcomes. Our advisors are with you every step of the way, aligning real-world experience with practical guidance to elevate your leadership and drive success.

Commitment to Excellence

Drawing on extensive firsthand leadership experience, we provide rigorous, real-world advice grounded in higher education and executive expertise. In our collective 50 years as university executives, we’ve seen it all, and can offer grounded solutions adaptable to most executive leadership challenges and situations.

See Our Approach

Our commitment is to help foster sustainable executive leadership success that honors tradition while advancing dextrous and brisk leadership decision-making in today’s fast-evolving environment for higher education.


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