Pros
Ellucian had some genuinely brilliant people. I mean real talent. Smart engineers, sharp support people who could look at a broken system and somehow see both the problem and the political disaster hiding behind it. A lot of people there cared deeply about higher ed. They understood that colleges and universities are not just “customers.” They are institutions trying to keep students moving, faculty supported, and operations alive with systems that often looked held together by duct tape, PLSQL scripts, and institutional trauma.
Cons
Then there was the C-suite. Every company has executives. That’s normal. But this group often felt less like corporate stewards and more like LinkedIn influencers who accidentally wandered into an ERP company. They seemed distant. Aloof. Not deeply engaged with the actual work, the clients, or the people carrying the weight. There was a lot of executive polish, a lot of corporate language, a lot of “vision,” but not always the kind of grounded leadership that makes employees say, “I trust these people with the future of the company.” At times, it felt like the people closest to the customers understood the business better than the people paid the most to lead it.