UNH Sales Light Blue Collar Impact Award Presented to Matt Haley
The UNH Sales Center’s Advisory Board and Director created the Light Blue Collar Impact Award to honor a UNH alumnus who embodies the essence of “light blue collar” professionalism — combining high-level business acumen with a tireless, service-oriented work ethic — and who continues to make a meaningful impact on our program and students.
We are proud to present the inaugural award to Matt Haley ’19.
Haley served as the first solo president of UNH Sales and the Professional Sales Group during the 2018–2019 academic year, graduating from the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics that same year. He was an active member of the Sales Club, a PSG member in the center’s first year of operations, and part of our first cohort of Sales Minors.
During his presidency, student leaders began assuming day-to-day classroom responsibilities — an important transition that allowed Haley to “lead from the front” while I, as the director, learned to step back. Since graduating, Hayley has remained actively engaged with the Sales Center, both personally and professionally, through the companies he has worked for.
He began his journey with internships at Sales Center partner companies MassPay and Gartner, and launched his post-UNH career at Bitsight, another partner. From the start, Hayley made a habit of coming back to support the program: helping out at events, speaking with students, and even creating a video tutorial on giving effective demos for the Advanced Sales class.
When his career took him to companies that weren’t yet Sales Center partners, he didn’t let that stop him — he took the initiative to bring them on board. At Vendr, he famously took the CFO out for drinks to pitch the value of becoming a partner. That year, Vendr hired five UNH Sales students, all of whom had outstanding starts to their careers.
He continued his impact at Blink, an employee experience platform that remains a partner today, and now at EliseAI, an AI startup based in New York City. Thanks in part to Hayley’s advocacy, recent graduate Layla Hanissian, who hoped to launch her career in NYC, is now doing just that at EliseAI. The company is even exploring the creation of a Boston-based sales hub.
