Heidi is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Western Carolina University. Prior to transitioning to academia, Heidi’s professional background has focused on marketing, entrepreneurship, digital marketing technology, and HR in the business-to-business professional service sector over 25 years. She has worked with a variety of industries from the Fortune 50 to small business start-ups. Heidi has incorporated research to make data driven decisions for over 2 decades; using data for competitive intelligence, market opportunity and consumer market insights such as sentiment analysis, trends and strategic analysis. 

 

A serial entrepreneur, she has been involved in start-ups, acquisitions, and successful exits, landed on the INC5000 list 5 years in a row, and was awarded the “Best Places To Work in NC.” Heidi was involved in several successful acquisitions that were integrated into her company’s product portfolio. She led the design and UX for her companies and clients including a proprietary internal operations application, multiple mobile applications, a multi-application web platform, eCommerce, communication, ATS and project management applications.  She has held licenses for several leadership personality development assessments and design-thinking.  Heidi runs a marketing consultancy, Markestry, where she assists start-ups and solopreneurs with their digital marketing strategy and execution and is the co-founder of Surenomics, a cybersecurity training and consulting firm with her husband, Paul Dent.

 

She is a guest entrepreneurship lecturer at Hochschule Munchen University of Applied Sciences. Previously, Heidi had a marketing agency and co-owned with Paul, several B2B professional service companies, was an Adjunct Professor for Christian Brothers University teaching Marketing and Entrepreneurship and South Georgia State College teaching Business Communication.

 

Heidi holds a BA in English from Mercer University, an MBA from UNC Pembroke, a MS in Digital Marketing at Florida International University and holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from Jacksonville University.   Outside of academia, Heidi likes to travel, hike, read, and build no-code apps and websites for fun.

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