CIO & Vice Provost for IT

The VP-CIO serves as a member of the senior administrative councils of the university and also serves a key leadership role in support of IT for the entire Universities of Wisconsin. The Division of Information Technology provides technology services for the system including network, ERP, infrastructure and platform services. Additionally, as a member of the Universities of Wisconsin IT leadership, the VP-CIO participates in planning and projects across the system. The VP-CIO is UW-Madison's delegate to the Enterprise Decisions Council which oversees the shared portfolio of IT services and funding.

Through active state-wide, regional, national, and international collaborations, UW-Madison has leveraged the strength of its technology infrastructure, to provide strong support for this worldclass institution. The CIO leads the university effort in furthering the overall IT strategic plan. The CIO works with University administration, deans and unit-level information officers, Vice Chancellor for Research, and interested faculty, staff, and students through collaborative relationships. The CIO receives support from central resources to facilitate emerging technologies and support collaborative activities that support the strategic planning process.

The CIO will lead the Division of Information Technology (DoIT), our central IT organization. DoIT has an $130 million operating budget with more than 600 full-time staff and 200 student staff. DoIT provides core IT infrastructure services to the university, develops and implements services for the university and in some cases, for the Universities of Wisconsin, plays a major role in managing the state-wide higher education network and regional networks. As measured by staffing, about 40% of university IT is within the DoIT organization and will report to the CIO; thus approximately 60% of UW-Madison's IT support is located in distributed IT. Providing close collaboration among and between all IT groups is an important part of the VP-CIO's position.

This is the highest IT leadership role for the university, leading a complex and dynamic, computing- and data-intensive organization. The CIO establishes and executes enterprisewide IT strategy and ensures its integration with the university's academic, service and business strategy. This is an outstanding opportunity to guide a strong information technology team through a time of transformation.

The Vice Provost (VP) - CIO reports to the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, with a dotted-line to the Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration. The VP-CIO is responsible for working with the UW-Madison community to develop and implement strategic IT plans and roadmaps and for managing key university IT resources and services.

• 20% Determines long-term institutional information needs and develops overall strategy for information needs and approach to integration ability, including systems development and hardware acquisition
• 10% Serves as a leader to assure integrity of organization data, proprietary information, and related intellectual property through information security and access management
• 15% Develops and directs strategic information technology planning initiatives and establishes objectives to ensure appropriate use of financial, administrative, staffing resources, and alignment with the strategic plan
• 5% Develops operating policies and procedures to comply with regulations, institutional policies, and objectives
• 5% Exercises supervisory authority, including hiring, transferring, suspending, promoting, managing conduct and performance, discharging, assigning, rewarding, disciplining, and/or approving hours worked of at least 2.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees
• 5% Develops and audits the budget
• 5% Serves as the liaison representing the interests to internal and external stakeholders
• 10% Develops IT strategic plans and ensures alignment with non-IT mission
• 5% Advises institutional or divisional leadership on information technology operations and business models
• 10% Performs manager functions and typically manages through subordinate managers
• 5% Promote adaptive and technical change across the university through effective collaboration and with a focus on organizational innovation and improvements in efficiency.
• 5% Engage an IT governance structure that will be able to provide input to decision making at a university level

Diversity is a source of strength, creativity, and innovation for UW-Madison. We value the contributions of each person and respect the profound ways their identity, culture, background, experience, status, abilities, and opinion enrich the university community. We commit ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in teaching, research, outreach, and diversity as inextricably linked goals.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison fulfills its public mission by creating a welcoming and inclusive community for people from every background - people who as students, faculty, and staff serve Wisconsin and the world.

For more information on diversity and inclusion on campus, please visit: Diversity and Inclusion

This individual will provide vision and senior leadership for the development, coordination, and use of technology to enable innovation in research, learning, and public service. They will lead the University in extending its technology strategy with respect to emerging trends and challenges in computing including research computing, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence/machine learning. Considerable experience working within complex organizational settings in relevant technology areas, as well as providing strategic thought leadership and organizational change management is essential. Knowledge and understanding of the information security needs of a complex academic organization is required. The candidate should also have demonstrated experience with the development and implementation of new delivery models balancing central and distributed services.

Essential characteristics include: innovative and visionary thinking, the ability to set and/or sequence priorities and manage resources, a deep and proven commitment to promoting and maintaining a service-oriented culture, the capacity to lead and oversee IT governance, a proactive management approach and demeanor, as well as exceptional communication skills, including the ability to interact at the highest levels of any organization including the Universities of Wisconsin (formally known as UW System), and with the University offices that engage government and legislative bodies.

A minimum of ten years of information technology (IT) leadership experience in a complex and decentralized environment is desired. Experience in a higher education, research-oriented IT environment (or similar) is strongly preferred.

Full Time: 100%

It is anticipated this position requires work be performed in-person, onsite, at a designated campus work location.

Ongoing/Renewable

Negotiable
ANNUAL (12 months)
Employees in this position can expect to receive benefits such as generous vacation, holidays, and paid time off; competitive insurances and savings accounts; retirement benefits.

The ideal candidate has a proven ability to mobilize resources, foster innovation, and leverage core infrastructure services for research, learning and service. The individual must be a team builder with demonstrated success in developing and nurturing collaborative relationships and providing direction to senior leaders across the institution. They also must be willing and able to reach out to faculty, staff, and students to plan, promote, implement, and assess new and existing IT services. They should promote human-centered design so that experiences supported by central IT are improved.

UW-Madison is one of the top public universities and is consistently among the most prolific research universities in the world, with a reputation for excellence built on 175 years of operation. The university is set in Madison, Wisconsin, a city often cited as one of the nation's best places to live. We are one of the first land-grant universities and, as the state's flagship university, are fully comprehensive, with 120 departments and over 200 education and research centers distributed across 13 schools and colleges. UW-Madison has a massive IT infrastructure serving administrative, education, research, and outreach needs with distributed facilities that produce millions of CPU hours of computing cycles each year and provide for huge amounts of data storage, retrieval, transmission, and analysis.

Important information regarding confidentiality: Unless confidentiality is requested in writing, UW-Madison is required by Wis. Stat. sec. 19.36(7) to release the names of all applicants to anyone who requests that information. If you would like to request confidentiality, please indicate that in an email to Nicole Sancilio, at the Isaacson, Miller search firm (nsancilio@imsearch.com). Candidates who advance to the finalist round are announced publicly prior to their campus visits.
Please visit https://apps.diversity.wisc.edu/questionnaire.aspx to complete voluntary self-identification information. PVL #306606

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer.

Applications, nominations, and inquiries are invited. Applications should include, as separate documents, a CV or resume and a letter of interest addressing the themes in this position description.

The Isaacson, Miller search firm is assisting the University of Wisconsin-Madison in this search. To ensure consideration, candidate materials should be received by January 10, 2025. Application materials should be submitted using the Isaacson, Miller candidate portal.

Katelyn Spanbauer
katelyn.spanbauer@wisc.edu
608-262-1936
Relay Access (WTRS): 7-1-1. See RELAY_SERVICE for further information.

CIO (Inst)(IT074)

A06-INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY/CIO OFFICE

Limited

306606-LI