Damien Howard is the Chief Enterprise Solutions Officer at Per Scholas. In this role, Damien is responsible for driving revenue across multiple verticals by aligning and optimizing the national nonprofit’s employer engagement and business strategy. Damien focuses on driving revenue growth across multiple markets while providing leadership for the Sales & Account Management, National Business Solutions, and Corporate Engagement Teams.
Over his 23 year tenure with Per Scholas, Damien has held a variety of positions and most recently served as Executive Vice President of Social Ventures. In this role, Damien was responsible for launching and leading the highly sophisticated revenue generating line of business called Customized Training. This business line develops dynamic and diverse IT talent acquisition solutions for enterprise level firms. This is primarily accomplished by taking a thoughtful and consultative approach to implementing corporate customized training solutions. Leveraging his prior success, Damien was able to stand up this new business line in New York, Dallas, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, and Seattle. With his leadership, the company was able to significantly increase revenue and tackle extremely complex business challenges, which resulted in superior performance outcomes. In addition, he also led our Corporate Asset Recovery Service.
Damien is an innovative leader with broad-based expertise in sales, management, contract negotiations, operations, and business development. His proven ability to quickly analyze key business drivers and develop strategies to grow the business paired with high integrity and energetic thinking makes Damien an essential part of Per Scholas’ National Leadership Team.
In 2016, Damien co-founded the national conversation and action series called Diverse by Design with the goal of moving conversation into action in the industry Per Scholas knows best: technology.
Damien is a past recipient of the Bonnie Potter Workforce Staff Award, presented by the New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCETC). He is a sought-after speaker and expert and has been featured by Forbes, Gartner Research Group (Global CIO events and 50th Anniversary panelists) Grow with Google, JFF Horizons, TEKsystems’ Version Next, Now, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, The World Economic Forum, The 3rd Annual Leading Private Equity Growth Event – The Big Exit 2021, and more. In 2023, Damien was welcomed as a Forbes Business Development Council Member and Contributor, sharing his perspective about talent development, business strategy, technology, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and more, here. Damien attended Baruch College and is a graduate of the Columbia Business School Institute for Nonprofit Management.