Guiding Higher Education Finance with Connection and Resilience

Linda Wilson, Senior Growth Account Executive, Transact + CBORD

Linda Wilson, Senior Growth Account Executive, Transact + CBORD

Linda Wilson, Senior Growth Account Executive at Transact+CBORD., draws on 18 years of experience at Gonzaga University, where she served as Finance Director. That role gave her deep insight into institutional needs and shaped her ability to support higher education leaders with empathy and understanding. At Transact+CBORD, she bridges product capabilities with the day-to-day realities finance professionals face. Her background allows her to easily connect, building trust through shared experience and honest connection. For Wilson, relationship-building isn’t a strategy; it’s simply how she moves through the world. She listens, supports and shows up with care in every conversation.

Through this article, Wilson emphasizes the importance of empathy, trust and peer-to-peer collaboration in supporting higher education finance professionals during uncertain times marked by shifting enrollment, changing funding streams, staffing cuts and rising operating costs.

Standing With Higher Education in Challenging Times

Higher education finance has always been a demanding space, but the past few years have changed the questions people are asking. Leaders are being pressed to stretch resources, hold teams together and still meet institutional goals while enrollment shifts, funding grows uncertain and costs climb. The strain is real and so is the need to rethink how work gets done.

I know what that pressure feels like because I have sat in their seat. Those years taught me how quickly competing priorities can pile up and how isolating it can feel when the choices are all hard. That perspective shapes how I approach every conversation now.

What gives me hope is the openness I see in this community. Finance professionals in higher education share ideas in a way few other fields do. They do not guard what they have learned. They talk about what works and what fails so others can adapt it. That culture of collaboration has shown me that no one needs to solve these problems alone.

“Leaders in higher education know their own institutions. What they need most is a peer who understands the pressure and can share ideas with honesty. When that happens, trust begins to grow”

My role today builds on those lessons. I spend my time connecting with teams, listening first and helping them uncover simpler, smarter ways to move forward. Sometimes that means drawing on solutions that worked in my own experience. Often it means learning from them. Working with Transact+CBORDgives me the chance to keep learning every day from people who care deeply about the mission they serve.

Growing With Institutions through Trust and Insight

The most meaningful part of my work is the chance to sit at the table with finance leaders who are facing real uncertainty. These conversations are never about products. They are about people trying to manage fewer staff, more complexity and rising expectations without losing sight of the students they serve.

I have learned that the best way to help is to listen. The questions matter more than the answers. Leaders in higher education know their own institutions. What they need most is a peer who understands the pressure and can share ideas with honesty. When that happens, trust begins to grow.

That trust has shaped everything for me. Over the years I have seen how transparent, practical guidance can make a difference. Sometimes the solutions come from what worked during my own time inside higher education. More often they come from something I learned by listening to someone else. This field has a rare willingness to share lessons so others can succeed.

I carry that with me into my work with Transact+CBORD. The chance to help shape better ways for institutions to handle payments and student accounts matters, but what matters more is staying grounded in that purpose. I cannot say where the next few years will take me. What I do know is that if I keep showing up with empathy and a willingness to learn, I will be exactly where I need to be.

Balancing Innovation with Human Connection

In recent years, I have watched finance leaders in higher education face a growing challenge. Expectations keep rising while resources shrink. That pressure has led many to look for ways to automate time-consuming processes. Streamlining reconciliation or other routine work does more than create efficiency. It gives teams room to focus on strategy, on students and the financial health of their institutions. It gives them back time to think.

Technology can make that possible. Tools that take away repetitive tasks free people to do their best work and even regain a measure of balance in their own lives. Artificial intelligence will only deepen that potential. I see real promise in it, but I see it for what it is. It is a tool.

The core of this work has always been relationships. Listening, caring, following through and showing up with consistency and empathy matter more than any platform. Those qualities have shaped every step of my career. They are the reason conversations turn into solutions and solutions turn into trust.

No matter how much automation, AI or student expectations change the landscape, that truth will not change. Working with Transact+CBORD gives me the opportunity to keep learning from leaders who are living that reality every day and to do my part in helping them move forward.