Educator · Builder · Strategist
That turn ideas into action
— Twenty years at the intersection of Mizzou & industry —
Jon Steffens · Professor of Marketing, Trulaske College of Business
Ten years ago, I walked into a Trulaske classroom as a guest speaker, wondering if practitioners like me had anything meaningful to offer students. That uncertainty dissolved when students approached me afterward — not with polite thank-yous, but with urgent questions about breaking into digital marketing. Within weeks, I'd interviewed three of them for internships.
The question from that day drives everything I build: will this help someone do the work? It's carried me from the College of Education's web team to a decade of guest lectures, to hiring Trulaske students at every company I've led, to joining the faculty — and now to building programs that reach beyond the classroom.
Great programs need both halves: the heart to develop people and the hard wiring to run like products — designed, measured, improved every cycle. I bring both.
Web strategy & enrollment marketing, MU
A decade in Trulaske classrooms; hired 15+ students into marketing roles
Four senior-level courses designed & taught
Co-curricular programs from zero — sold out, job outcomes
Professional education at scale
Each pillar maps to a cluster of the role — pedagogy first, with the marketing engine that keeps it alive.
Courses, workshops, and simulations designed, delivered, and evaluated in full cycles — semester retrospectives, improvement logs, and outcome data, not vibes. Four senior-level courses; an EDGE-approved workshop with job outcomes; simulation-based training.
Mentoring and coaching from classroom to boardroom: 15+ students placed in marketing roles, an internship-to-hire pipeline adopted statewide, founder coaching through 54-hour sprints, and a decade of Startup Weekend mentorship.
Programs die quietly without an audience. I bring 15 years of growth strategy — from Fortune 500 brands to a community AI meetup that sold out in 48 hours — to make sure what we build gets found, attended, and talked about.
Curriculum, co-curricular, community, and executive education — each one built end-to-end. Open any one in depth.
16+ seniors built live portfolio sites in one session; three reported job offers shortly after.
Read case study → CurriculumReal clients pitch Shark-Tank-style; student teams ship full campaigns and 8 industry certifications.
Read case study → Curriculum4.49 supportive score — and a semester recap built like a customer-insights report.
Read case study → CurriculumNew course, one semester: 349 custom slides, live local cases, simulation training, 94% flagship average.
Read case study →Columbia's applied-AI community — first event sold out in 48 hours; Trulaske students run its marketing.
Track chair + four sessions at a national B2B conference; invited workshop on AI-era mentorship.
Read case study → CoachingThree student teams coached through a 54-hour startup sprint — frameworks now reusable curriculum.
Read case study →A 60-camp community resource for Columbia families, built and launched solo in one season.
The question behind every program
Will this help someone do the work?
Strategic lead for an 8-brand, $50M+ revenue DTC portfolio; built the agency's reporting standard and its internal communication-coaching framework.
Built an eCommerce division from zero to 7-figure ARR in 18 months at a $3.7B construction-tech company.
Led MO.gov for 6MM+ citizens; Governor's Award in Productivity; created the internship-to-hire pipeline.
8 D2C stores launched in 18 months; 100–800% quarterly growth across a 15-brand portfolio.
I've spent twenty years helping Mizzou students become professionals and programs become institutions. I'd love to hear where the Novak Leadership Institute is headed — over coffee, anywhere in Columbia.