Preston Harden was born in Atlanta on February 11, 1969. His PRABOOK profile identifies him with South Africa and records family relations named Sarah and Charles. His professional life has included work in the United States across business consulting, municipal administration, higher education, and enterprise technology.
Harden studied business management at Clayton State University, completing a Bachelor of Science in business management in 1996. He later pursued graduate study in public policy and administration at Northwestern University. His educational path connects business training with subsequent work in public administration, higher education, and organizational transformation.
Harden began his professional career in the 1990s in administrative and consulting positions before joining Parson's Group as a consultant from 1996 to 1998. He subsequently built a long career at Microsoft, progressing through consulting, project-management, resource-management, engagement-management, and services-executive roles. His Microsoft work included senior-consultant and services-executive responsibilities and continued through the 2000s. He later moved into public and higher-education administration. In Atlanta, he served as Director of Intergovernmental and Community Relations from 2009 to 2011 and was involved in municipal and campaign-related work. From 2011 to 2016, he served as Associate Vice Chancellor at the City Colleges of Chicago, where he participated in district administration, student-affairs initiatives, college tours, and programs supporting student achievement and access to four-year institutions. Harden subsequently worked in enterprise consulting and transformation. He held senior engagement and program-management positions at Workday, including work involving higher education and government, customer transformation, enablement, operations, systems, global program management, and business-process analysis. His later role has focused on global mergers-and-acquisitions integration and AI-driven transformation.
Advanced through multiple consulting, project-management, engagement-management, and services-executive roles during a long career at Microsoft.
Supported student achievement and college-access initiatives as an Associate Vice Chancellor at the City Colleges of Chicago, including an annual college tour that brought students to six four-year institutions.
Developed senior expertise in customer transformation, enterprise operations, systems, mergers-and-acquisitions integration, and AI-driven business transformation at Workday.
Harden is associated with Project Management Professional (associate) membership, reflecting his professional connection to project and program management.
Harden has been described by professional colleagues as organized, collaborative, communicative, conscientious, and effective in working with clients, employees, and cross-functional teams.
Quotes from others about the person
Professional colleagues have praised Harden's organization, professionalism, collaborative communication, client and employee relations, and ability to make difficult situations easier through humor.
Harden's recorded family relations include Sarah, identified as his mother, and Charles, identified as his father.
