Director Business Operations for Student Life

Director of Business Operations

Student Life Division

The Director of Business Operations provides strategic financial, operational, and administrative leadership for the Student Life Division. Ensures effective stewardship of resources through budgeting, financial analysis, rate setting, contract oversight, and operational coordination across housing, dining, and auxiliary services. The Director leads a centralized divisional resource hub that delivers finance, marketing and communications, and information technology support to Student Life departments. The role also serves as the primary liaison between Student Life and central University offices, ensuring alignment, coordination, and high-quality service delivery. Partners closely with Student Life senior leadership, oversees complex financial systems, manage major vendor relationships, and supports both long-term strategic planning and time-sensitive decision-making. Success in this role depends on sound judgment, systems fluency, and cross-functional leadership rather than transactional work.

Key Responsibilities

• The Director leads the development and oversight of multi-million-dollar budgets for the Student Life Division, including annual budget preparation, monthly monitoring, variance analysis, and financial reporting. The role serves as the primary liaison to the Finance department for divisional financial operations, including allocations, journal entries, fund and org corrections, and ad hoc reporting. The Director provides HR costing and financial analysis related to staffing changes, organizational planning, and resource allocation, and ensures accurate financial coding, approvals, and compliance with financial policies.
• The position provides financial modeling and quantitative analysis to support divisional strategic planning, operational initiatives, and executive decision-making. This includes developing and maintaining financial models for housing, dining, and auxiliary operations and leading rate setting for housing, dining meal plans, door rates, and summer programs.
• The Director serves as the primary divisional liaison to the campus dining partner, overseeing billing, meal plan usage analysis, purchasing coordination, and resolution of operational and financial issues. The role includes analyzing weekly and monthly dining financials and usage data to ensure accuracy and operational effectiveness, overseeing meal plan setup, billing, and reconciliation at the beginning and end of academic terms, and coordinating systems and processes with Information Technology, the Business Office, and Campus Living. The Director also supports auxiliary and summer operations, including conferences, guest housing, concessions, and related billing processes.
• The Director directly supervises the Assistant Director of Business Operations, the Associate Director of Marketing, and the Applications Administrator, and leads a centralized Student Life resource hub that provides internal finance, marketing and communications, and IT support across the Division. The role is responsible for setting priorities, aligning resources, coordinating workloads, and ensuring consistent, high-quality service delivery. This includes hiring, training, performance management, and ongoing supervision of staff.
• The position serves as the primary liaison between Student Life and central University offices, including Finance, Marketing and Communications, and Information Technology. The Director provides strategic and operational support to the Vice Provost for Student Life and senior leadership through project management, documentation, planning support, resource alignment, and HR-related actions.
• The Director acts as the divisional point of contact for University-wide dining, bottling, and vending contracts and manages vendor relationships to ensure contractual compliance and effective service delivery. The role supports long-term planning related to vendor services and serves as a liaison between vendors and University stakeholders to resolve operational and financial issues.
• Additional responsibilities include oversight of specialized operational areas such as donated product management, food service documentation, food truck billing, and guest housing rates and billing, as well as other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, accounting, finance, or a closely related field required; Master's degree (MBA or similar) preferred.
• 7 years of progressive experience in financial management, business operations, or administrative leadership required. Experience in higher education preferred.
• Minimum of 3 years of supervisory experience.

The ideal candidate brings strong strategic financial leadership, including budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis, and the ability to translate financial data into operational and strategic decisions. The role requires sound judgment, strong analytical and problem-solving skills, and the ability to deliver clear, timely recommendations in fast-paced, issue-driven environments.

Success depends on the ability to prioritize competing departmental needs, provide functional leadership across finance, marketing and communications, and IT, and manage partnerships through effective negotiation and issue resolution. The Director must communicate complex financial and operational information clearly to both senior leadership and non-financial audiences, balance attention to detail with awareness of broader institutional impact, and demonstrate a commitment to confidentiality, ethical decision-making, and stewardship of University resources. A demonstrated commitment to the Catholic, Jesuit mission of Creighton University is required.