Ben Helland unpacks how strategy turns into outcomes for learners and employers at Western Governors University (WGU). As Principal Product Strategist, he partners with the Schools of Business and Health to design long-term roadmaps that serve working adults and an expanding 18–24 segment. He explains why WGU measures every big bet against three lenses—equity, completion, and return—and how a jobs-first mission shapes programs, support, and pace of innovation.

Ben contrasts strategy across domains: Health must move deliberately within licensure and clinical regulations (e.g., time-bound placement windows), while Business can iterate faster. Those constraints don’t kill innovation—they force it—pushing teams to anticipate infrastructure decisions early (the “remodel your house” analogy) and to build flexible, career-relevant pathways students can tailor to time and goals. He also widens the competitive lens beyond traditional colleges to include apprenticeships and other earn-while-you-learn options that may skip the “first rung.”

Zooming out, Ben sketches WGU’s scale and reach—alumni in every U.S. county and near-200K active learners—and its origin story: a bipartisan solution to access and mobility. He then dives into scenario-based planning: pick the two biggest uncertainties, build four plausible futures, and place small bets you can scale when signals shift. Strategy, he argues, is ultimately about what you say no to—and it only matters if it cascades into org design, capabilities, budgets, and day-to-day work people understand.

From his own venture, Veridate, Ben shares two execution stories: acting CEO to clean up and sell a 20-year small business, and facilitating AI-era strategy for a global publisher. Both underscore proximity to the problem, clarity of ownership, and the translation of vision into hiring, tooling, and rituals.

Ben’s personal arc—child-psych PhD track to MBA to strategist—anchors his belief in “humanization” and durable skills that outlast toolchains. Teaching 100 first-semester students sharpened his conviction that exposure matters: understand what jobs actually are before you spend years (and dollars) pursuing them. His advice to his younger self: take bigger risks in your 20s, bet on yourself when the downside is small, and seek broad exposure so your choices are informed by reality, not guesswork.

We close on the university–employer handshake: if companies want graduates with precise skills and “soft-skill” fluency, they must engage upstream. For students, the right post-high-school path isn’t one-size-fits-all—what matters is a clear line of sight from learning to opportunity. Off the clock, Ben is dad to a drummer and a rock climber, a trail runner and “slightly better than average” guitarist, happily debating the Utah Utes—and never saying no to a Dutch Bros Americano.

About Ben Helland:

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-helland/

About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎

🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers

- 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/

- 🌐 https://densitylabs.io

- ✅ https://prevetted.ai

🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡

- 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast

- 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod

- 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast

00:00 Introduction to Ben Helland and WGU

01:33 Differentiating Education Strategies Across Disciplines

05:16 Navigating Regulations in Health and Business Education

10:06 The Role of Competitive Analysis in Higher Education

14:57 The Impact of Online Education on Rural Communities

19:51 The Value of a College Degree and Employability

24:08 Bridging the Gap Between Education and Employment

29:43 Navigating Choices in Education and Career Paths

35:05 Bridging Strategy and Execution in Business

51:37 The Value of Planning and Scenario-Based Thinking

52:12 Advice for the Younger Generation: Embracing Risks