This study examines the role of university leaders in enacting and managing organizational changes in Kazakh public universities. After gaining autonomy in 2018, universities have the freedom to pursue their visions for development. More empirical research is needed to understand how and why Kazakh universities and their leaders implement comprehensive and organizational changes, despite the policy rhetoric of university autonomy encouraging flexibility and institutional development. The overarching research question of the proposed study is as follows: “How do leaders of regional public universities undertake and manage organizational changes on their campuses in Kazakhstan?” The following three sub-questions underpin the main research question: (1) How do national higher education policies in Kazakhstan influence the nature of organizational changes in regional public universities? (2) What change strategies do public university leaders undertake to bring organizational changes to campuses? (3) How do other campus constituents make sense of the university leaders’ change strategies? A multiple case study of three regional public universities was conducted to analyze the role of organizational culture, presidential leadership, change strategies, and factors enabling organizational changes in Kazakhstan’s higher education sector.