Elizabeth Varner is Operations Director at Upstream Consulting since July 2025, overseeing operations for a consulting firm supporting nonprofits in grant acquisition, reporting, and process efficiency, including grant research and application coordination. She previously served as Grant Support Specialist at Upstream Consulting from 2021 to 2025, supporting grant management processes. Alongside this, she worked at Academic Search from 2021 to 2025, first as Associate Consultant – Search Consultant (2021–2024) supporting over 40 higher education executive searches including President, CFO, COO and senior academic roles, and then as Associate Consultant – CRM Consultant (2024–2025) focused on CRM enhancements, data standardization, user guides, testing and rollout support. Prior to this, she worked at Georgia Southern University from 2014 to 2021 in admissions and clinical education administration for doctoral healthcare programs. Earlier she served as Career Services Advisor at Armstrong State University in 2013, and as Coordinator of Educational Programs at Duke University from 2001 to 2005. She holds a Master of Arts in Student Development: Higher Education Administration from Appalachian State University and a Bachelor’s degree in English from The University of the South.