Patrick E. Auerbach, Ed.D.

Founder & President

Patrick Auerbach, a seasoned executive leader with three decades of experience across non-profit, higher education and sport-related enterprises, is Founder & President of PAUER Consulting LLC.  Throughout his career, he has led strategic, innovative and mission-driven programs in community and institutional impact, audience building, volunteer leadership development and engagement, fundraising and constituent relations. 

In addition to founding PAUER Consulting in 2024, Auerbach has also been advising higher education clients as a Vice President and Senior Consultant for Chris Marshall Advancement Consulting since February 2024 and returned to collaborating each spring with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as a Site Representative and Media Relations Associate for various rounds of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship and postseason Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament.

In December 2023, Auerbach completed a 23.5-year tenure at the University of Southern California during which he served for 11 years as Associate Senior Vice President for Alumni Relations. In this role, he managed all operations of the USC Alumni Association, served as the University’s chief alumni relations officer to engage the Trojan Family’s diverse alumni constituency of more than 480,000 worldwide members, and concluded his term by executing the Association’s Centennial celebration and fundraising initiatives in the Fall of 2023.  As part of his senior management role in the Division of University Advancement, Auerbach also supervised USC Associates, the University’s 2,000-member premier academic support group.

Auerbach initially joined the Trojan Family in July 2000 when he was hired by USC Athletics as the department’s first-ever Director of Women’s Basketball Operations & Marketing, managing all team operations, directing marketing and ticket sales initiatives and supporting local USC community outreach projects for the nationally renowned Women of Troy Basketball program.

Prior to working at USC, Auerbach served as Assistant General Manager/Director of Public Relations for the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA)’s Detroit Shock expansion franchise in 1998, following a four-year stint as the first-ever Director of Media & Public Relations for the Atlanta-based Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA). During this time, he also worked as a consultant with ESPN, Inc. and USA TODAY Sports on their coverage of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championships and Top 25 Coaches’ Polls, respectively, and was a volunteer on the Basketball Secretariat Staff of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) in 1996. 

Nationally, Auerbach has served in a variety of roles in higher education and intercollegiate athletics, including Presiding Officer of PCUAD (Association of Private College and University Alumni Directors) from 2019-22 and elected member of the Commission on Alumni Relations for CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education) from 2019-22. He served on the USC Hillel Board of Directors from 2017-21 and was a member of the NCAA Women’s Final Four Media Coordination Committee from 2004-12.

Auerbach earned his B.A. from UCLA in 1992, his M.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1994, and his Ed.D. from USC in 2008 upon completion of his dissertation, “Decisions Under Influence:  College Presidents’ Athletics-Related Decision-Making Behavior at NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Institutions.” He is a native of the San Fernando Valley, Calif., and currently resides in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.