Heather Stegner Levels Up to COO with Executive MBA
By Lauren Lesmeister
The CEO shared his vision for creating a chief operating officer (COO) role—and told her he had her in mind for the position. Within minutes of the meeting, she was looking up application deadlines for the Carson College of Business’s online Executive MBA (EMBA), an affordable, flexible program offered through WSU Global Campus.
At the time, Stegner was the vice president for communications and educational outreach for the AWC. She spent most of her career in public relations and wanted to broaden her business acumen with an EMBA.
“I wanted to expand my focus,” she says. “The WSU Executive MBA really stood out. It offered a well-rounded foundation in business while emphasizing leadership and strategic management.”
A broader lens for leading across functions
As COO, Stegner oversees operations, communications, membership, technology, and education for the AWC. She sees her role as building bridges across departments, identifying innovation opportunities, and ensuring the team delivers meaningful results for the wood products industry.
She credits the Carson College EMBA program with giving her the tools and confidence to lead at a higher level.
“The program broadened my perspective, sharpened my strategic thinking, and helped me become a more effective and empathetic leader,” she says.
Stegner found the courses in management and leadership especially influential. While facing tough decisions at work that challenged the status quo, her EMBA training helped her weigh the complex ethical implications of those choices for both internal teams and external stakeholders.
Learning that’s immediately applicable
Stegner says a surprising highlight of the EMBA program was the immediate applicability of the skills she learned. Course content frequently aligned with her professional responsibilities.
For example, while enrolled in an international business management course, Stegner was in France representing her industry at a global meeting. Another assignment asked her to develop a business case—perfectly timed with a project she was leading to improve internal operations at the AWC.
As AWC’s vice president for communications and educational outreach, she rolled out a new internal platform to ensure staff were using the correct files. The business case in her MBA program provided a framework to consider each step of the new platform.
“That project helped me think through change management—how to communicate the changes, prepare people affected by them, and implement the solution in a way that would stick,” she says. “That kind of real-time application made the learning incredibly relevant.”
Purposeful leadership, rooted in real life
As a mom and a first-generation college graduate, earning an executive MBA was a huge accomplishment for Stegner. She says the milestone reflects her hard work and commitment to growth, and it gave her a greater appreciation for her support system at home. Stegner says one of the most meaningful moments of the program was walking across the stage in Beasley Coliseum, knowing her daughter was watching and cheering her on while she received her diploma.
Originally, she viewed the EMBA as a way to strengthen her professional qualifications and check a box for advancement, but what she gained was a transformative set of skills and insights that reshaped her approach to leadership.
“The EMBA gave me the business acumen and leadership tools I needed to step confidently into the role of COO,” she says. “It helped me formalize what I had learned through experience and gave me a broader strategic lens to lead across functions. It was the right program at exactly the right time.”