Dena Messer-Herrera is the Director of Enterprise Design Practice at the University Design Institute at Arizona State University, where she partners with senior executives and institutional leaders to advance enterprise strategy, strengthen leadership capacity, and enable meaningful, sustainable growth.
With a focus on aligning strategic priorities with culture and human capability, Dena helps organizations navigate complex, high-stakes challenges and translate insight into coordinated action. Her work sits at the intersection of enterprise design, leadership development, and organizational effectiveness, supporting leaders and systems to operate with greater clarity, adaptability, and impact.
Dena brings deep expertise in human-centered design and systems thinking, combined with a relational, facilitative leadership style that builds trust and accelerates alignment among diverse stakeholders. She is frequently engaged in moments of ambiguity and transformation, helping leaders make sense of complexity, identify critical leverage points, and move forward with intention.
Prior to her current role, Dena served as Associate Director of Leadership and Professional Development at EdPlus at ASU, where she led the leadership strategy supporting more than 800 employees and built scalable leadership pathways that strengthened internal talent pipelines and organizational performance.
Coaching is central to Dena’s approach. She views leadership as stewardship, grounded in deliberate action, systemic thinking, and a commitment to elevating others. Through her work, she helps leaders and teams build the resilience, innovation, and capability required to shape the future of their organizations.
Her mission is to cultivate leaders and systems that operate with vision, integrity, and a deep sense of responsibility for what comes next.