Melissa K. Trotta

Managing Principal

Melissa K. Trotta, Ed.D., joined AGB Search as associate managing principal in 2017. She has spent more than 25 years in higher education administration at universities including Harvard, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins in leadership roles that spanned admissions and enrollment, program management, executive education, and strategic planning. Dr. Trotta most recently served as a vice president at Neumann Executive Search Partners (formerly Brill Neumann Associates), where she engaged in strategic recruitment, research, business development, and client and candidate services for senior administrative and academic searches. She has partnered with institutions on searches for presidents, chief financial officers, chief information officers, deans, provosts, executive vice presidents/chief operating officers, and vice presidents and vice provosts for enrollment management, finance and administration, institutional research, and university registrar services.

Most recently, Dr. Trotta has conducted searches for the following institutions:

  • Barry University (FL) – President
  • Broward College (FL) – President; Provost/Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs and Student Services
  • Bucknell University (PA) – Associate Vice President/Treasurer and Controller
  • St. John’s University (NY) – Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs; Dean of the School of Education
  • Thomas More University (KY) –  President

Among Dr. Trotta’s other clients are Allegheny College, Edmonds Community College, Emory University, Georgetown University, Northeastern University, Rice University, Stony Brook University, the University of Dayton, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Wayne State University.

Dr. Trotta has presented as a speaker and panelist at a variety of meetings and conferences of education-related professional organizations, including the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), the Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers (EACUBO), the American Council on Education’s Women’s Leadership Forum, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Higher Education Leadership Conference.

Dr. Trotta holds a B.A. in communications (Phi Beta Kappa) and an M.A. in higher education administration, both from Boston College. She earned a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, where her dissertation research focused on building the administrative leadership pipeline on college and university campuses. She serves as chair of the Alumni Advisory Board of the Executive Doctorate Program at the University of Pennsylvania and was previously on the executive committee of the Education Alumni Association at Penn’s Graduate School of Education.