Chief Business Officer, University Business Operations

About the role

The Chief Business Officer (CBO) for Business Operations is responsible for driving operational excellence, financial stewardship, organizational effectiveness, and strategic business support across a diverse portfolio of university administrative and support departments.

Serves as a trusted advisor to executive leadership, providing strategic oversight, operational leadership, and university business expertise that enables institutional priorities through a central service center.

Responsibilities

• Provides leadership for the university's shared services and business operations functions.
• Serves as a key advisor to senior leaders on financial, budgeting, purchasing, workforce, and administrative activities.
• Oversees the implementation of appropriate business processes and internal controls, develops strong and collaborative relationships with service center stakeholders and university leaders, and promotes a positive and trustworthy reputation of the Central Service Center.
• Communicates effectively with stakeholders at all levels, managing expectations and ensuring transparency regarding priorities, performance, and organizational changes.
• Oversees the day-to-day operations of the central service center and associated business functions ensuring the delivery of responsive, customer-focused, high quality services across supported departments.
• Establishes and maintains service standards, manages customer concerns and expectations, and develops and implements strategies and plans for growth, service enhancements, cost reductions, and sustained continuous improvements for the service center.
• Ensures business processes are documented, compliant, efficient, and aligned with institutional objectives.
• Fosters a culture of continuous improvement, professional development, accountability, and service excellence.
• Develops and maintains appropriate department metrics, goals, and overall customer service levels.
• Serves as a senior-level financial management professional with oversight of financial planning, budget development, forecasting, reporting, and resource allocation activities.
• Led annual budget process for customers in the service center and collaborate with university leadership to align financial resources with strategic priorities.
• Delivers sophisticated financial analysis, business intelligence, and decision-support reporting.
• Maintains strong fiscal controls, stewardship of university resources, and compliance with applicable policies.
• Serves as a strategic partner to central Human Resources and departmental leadership to support workforce planning, organizational effectiveness, talent development, employee engagement, and change management initiatives.
• Supports leadership with strategic financial modeling, scenario planning, and long-range financial analysis to support strategic discussions.
• Manages fiscal close for organizations in the service center, collaborating with business officers across the organization as needed to ensure timely and accurate fiscal close activities.
• Serves as a trusted advisor to departmental leaders, helping navigate procurement processes, policy requirements, and supplier engagement.
• Ensures procurement and HR related transactions and activities within supported departments are conducted in accordance with university policies, regulatory requirements, internal controls, and audit standards.
• Provides oversight for administrative support services delivered through the service center, ensuring consistent, efficient, and customer-focused support across departments served.
• Establishes service standards, performance metrics, and accountability measures to ensure high-quality, responsive support services.
• Develops scalable service models that support organization growth, changing priorities, and future expansion of the service center portfolio.
• Fosters a culture of professionalism, collaboration, continuous improvement, and exceptional customer service withing administrative support teams.
• Successfully leads cross-functional teams through periods of change, organizational realignment, and operational expansion.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree, preferably in Business Administration or Accounting, and 10 years of business management or related experience.
• MBA preferred.
• A good understanding of business operations on a college campus and experience working with budgets on a college campus preferred.
• Establishes a financial chain of authority that respects separation of duties and conflict of interest.
• A strong financial aptitude to engage in strategic financial analytics.
• Experience managing and motivating staff with an excellent customer service focus.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.