Kristin Hultquist

Kristin Hultquist was appointed to the MSU Denver Board of Trustees in December 2019.

Kristin Hultquist is a founding partner of HCM Strategists (HCM), a public policy and advocacy consulting firm founded in 2008. She is an expert in higher education policy and strategy development at the state and federal levels across the firm’s higher education clients, which include several major US philanthropies, including Ascendium, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, Lumina Foundation and Strada, as well as major national higher education associations, regional higher education compacts, state higher education agencies and systems, the College Board and the George W. Bush Center. Kristin’s policy leadership with experts, states, foundations, and organizations includes providing expert testimony three times to the US Congress, authoring opinion editorials appearing in the New York Times and USA Today, and securing regulatory and statutory changes that have simplified federal financial aid to serve millions more students.

Kristin’s belief in the transformative power of higher education opportunity is a direct result of her own educational experience. Prior to forming HCM Strategists, Kristin served as senior advisor to the U.S. Undersecretary of Education where she helped develop the Secretary’s action plan in response to the Spellings Commission report. She previously served as the program director of the education division of the National Governor’s Association and directed the Washington, D.C., office of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. A Pell Grant recipient and the first college graduate in her family, Kristin earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University. Kristin serves on the boards of Metro State University Denver and the Institute for Higher Education Policy and has assisted section of the Scholarship America Dream Award since 2019. She and her husband, Brent, share four children and live in Parker, Colorado.