Excelsior hires Roberto Figueroa II to spearhead student recruitment

ALBANY, N.Y. (October 5, 2011) — Excelsior College has announced the appointment of Roberto Figueroa II to the position of executive director of admissions. Figueroa, most recently assistant director of Admissions at SUNY Orange, arrives at Excelsior with a career spanning higher education and entrepreneurship.

As executive director of admissions, Figueroa is responsible for all activities of the Office of Admissions, including student enrollment, internal and external call centers, and registration for credit-by-examination programs. He serves as the institution’s leader for strategic recruitment and enrollment planning and for non-academic services that support student success and retention. Excelsior, an accredited, nonprofit distance learning institution focused on the needs of working adults, has a student population of approximately 30,000.

"I see Excelsior as an emerging giant, a program on the cusp of becoming a household name, and I am honored for the opportunity to do my part to take the institution to the next phase of academic growth worldwide," said Figueroa.

Figueroa comes to Excelsior from SUNY Orange, where he served as assistant director of admissions for the past three years, following a two year stint as associate director of admissions at Nyack College. In both roles, Figueroa was charged with student recruitment and retention, strategic planning, and implementing and maintaining new technologies. Among his more notable accomplishments, Figueroa spearheaded and managed a software system utilized by the Admissions Office, Advising and Counseling, and Student Support Systems at SUNY Orange that fundamentally altered event management. At Nyack College, MBA enrollment increased from 9 students to 49 during his time there.

Figueroa also brings considerable experience outside the higher education sector, most notably as a business entrepreneur. In 1999, he founded Platinum Painting Co. LLC, a small residential and commercial painting company in Newburgh, N.Y. For eight years, Figueroa was responsible for managing all aspects of the business, from operations and budgets to resource management, customer relations, marketing and advertising, and even labor and materials. The experience, Figueroa says, provided a unique foundation for his work in higher education.

"I was out there on-the-ground every day, recruiting new business and managing existing clients and my own employees, even doing my own marketing and advertising, and it taught me much about what it takes to run a successful business,” said Figueroa, a former theatre major at SUNY-New Paltz. “That knowledge and experience has proven incredibly useful in higher education admissions in terms of targeting specific populations, developing effective marketing campaigns, and learning to adapt. I look forward to the challenge ahead."

A Screen Actors Guild member, Figueroa has donned the red tights of Spider-Man for marketing appearances on behalf of Marvel and appeared in commercials for McDonald’s, Lowes and Budweiser.