One door opened for Tracy. We built the platform to open twenty million more.
The story of ConexED starts with a 12-year-old in foster care and an advisor named Cindy Clark.
The door that opened
At twelve, Tracy entered the foster care system. By fifteen, she was emancipated, navigating life without the safety net most teenagers take for granted.
One afternoon, out of nothing more than curiosity, she walked into Salt Lake Community College to see what a community college even was.
That walk changed her life.
Inside, she met an advisor named Cindy Clark. Cindy did not just answer questions. She took Tracy under her wing, helped her understand her options, connected her with resources, and guided her into TRIO. For the first time, Tracy had someone in her corner who made her feel seen, supported, and capable of something more.
It was not about getting into college. It was about being connected to someone who believed she could.
The program that didn't
Years later, Tracy enrolled in a rigorous project-based bachelor's program built for working adults. Her classmates were professionals balancing careers, families, and coursework. Driven people. Capable people.
But the support was limited. The access was rigid. Help was not available when it mattered.
Twenty-six of the thirty students, including Tracy, failed the term.
One classmate put it plainly:
We didn’t fail. The system failed us. If I could have just knocked on someone’s door when I needed help, I would have succeeded.
The knock
At Salt Lake, Tracy had a door to knock on. In the adult program, she did not. That was the entire difference between her path and her classmates’.
Not ability. Not effort. Access.
She had built a career as a front-end developer and product leader. She understood what a connection point looks like in software. And she saw something most of higher education had missed: the real bottleneck in student success was not curriculum or funding or policy.
It was the knock.
So she built one.
TO DATE, CONEXED HAS SUPPORTED OVER
20,000,000students
across hundreds of institutions. Every one of them, a knock away from help when it mattered.
This is not about technology.
It is about making sure no student falls through the cracks simply because they could not reach someone when it mattered.
CONEXED. CONNECTING STUDENTS TO SUCCESS.
Tracy Atieh
Tracy Atieh built ConexED from a deeply personal understanding of what student support can mean and what happens when it is missing.
A foster youth at twelve and an emancipated teenager at fifteen, she experienced firsthand how one advisor at Salt Lake Community College could change the trajectory of a life. Cindy Clark did not just answer her questions. She made Tracy feel seen and connected her to the resources that opened her future.
That experience became the foundation of ConexED. As a front-end developer and product leader, Tracy has remained integral to the platform’s design and evolution, shaping the product that has served millions of students across hundreds of college systems.
Her work has built partnerships across higher education and nonprofit organizations and earned her an honorary doctoral degree for her contributions to the field. For her, the mission remains unchanged: when students connect to the right support at the right time, outcomes change.
Whether you’re a CIO consolidating systems, a Vice Chancellor driving student success, or an advisor supporting hundreds of students,
ConexED was built for you.
See What It Looks Like When It All Works Together.
No commitment. See your campus in action in 15 minutes.
