Ann Nygard

About Ann Nygard

The Center for Professional Studies launched in October 2016 with Ms. Nygard as its inaugural director. She is a serial program entrepreneur at NVU-Lyndon having launched the Incubator without Walls program in 2007, which stemmed the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, an umbrella for a wide variety of initiatives such as Academic Summer Camps, Regional Business and Education Summit, and Kingdom Career Connect. She returned to NVU-Lyndon in 2010 after a two-year commitment with National Geographic Society’s Center for Sustainable Destinations in Washington, D.C. where she was Associate Director of Operations. During this time, she oversaw operations of global geo-tourism programs, developed corporate responsibility strategies, and supported responsible business planning for small businesses and multinationals alike. She was appointed as Geotourism Expert for the Intercontinental Hotel Group in 2008, where she oversaw workforce training program development and rollout for its 60,000 employees worldwide. Her work with Inter America Development Bank (IADB) and the UN Foundation scaled up innovative business practices to further Sustainable Tourism cluster development.

From 2005 to 2007, Ms. Nygard was executive director of Northeast Kingdom Travel and Tourism Association, where she implemented a number of USDA Rural Development grants. She led the National Geographic Northeast Kingdom Geotourism Program, resulting in the Geotourism MapGuide of the Northeast Kingdom connecting NEK businesses to the global market by featuring local products and services. She has lived and worked for 13 years in Finland, Sweden, the UK, France, and Rwanda. She was also employed by Tiffany & Co. in New York and London as an international marketing analyst. Her other positions included working at the U.S. Library of Congress-East Africa Division in Nairobi, Kenya. Ms. Nygard holds an MBA from Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration and a BS from the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. 

Courses Taught

Global Business

Innovations, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship