Chief Administrative Officer

Universities of Wisconsin•Madison, WI

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The inaugural Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for SMPH Information Technology serves as the senior administrative and financial leader for a large, complex, and rapidly evolving enterprise IT organization supporting all missions across the School of Medicine and Public Health’s departments, institutes, and centers. The CAO directs business operations, finance, and administrative functions that currently absorb significant technical‑leadership capacity, enabling IT leaders to focus more fully on strategic and technical priorities. In this role, the CAO delivers critical financial and operational leadership, including the development and oversight of budgeting practices, chargeback modeling, and the implementation of a major annual chargeback center. The position partners closely with SMPH administration and departmental leaders to strengthen administrative infrastructure, streamline workflows, enhance fiscal reporting, and ensure IT services remain aligned with the needs of academic and research units. This position is essential to advancing strong financial stewardship and supporting major organizational transitions—such as the recent migration to Workday and ongoing application conversions—while modernizing service agreements and promoting operational excellence across SMPH IT. The CAO will directly supervise several positions supporting the administration of IT.

Requirements

5+ years of progressively responsible experience in administrative leadership, including oversight of business operations, finance, HR, or organizational process improvement.
Experience developing and managing financial strategy, budgets, forecasts, and cash management for a complex organization.
Experience supervising staff, including hiring, performance management, and workload planning.
Demonstrated experience improving, assessing, or streamlining administrative or operational processes.
Excellent communication skills, with demonstrated ability to facilitate problem resolution and communicate diplomatically.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience in higher education, academic medicine, research administration, or large, matrixed organizations.
Experience managing or implementing chargeback models, cost centers, or service‑based billing, especially at multimillion‑dollar scale.
Experience supporting IT organizations, research computing, or technical service units with complex financial and operational structures.
Experience developing or modernizing service agreements, MOUs, or departmental contracts.

Responsibilities

Assesses processes, staffing, and systems to identify opportunities for improvement and streamlining on a regular basis
Serves as the primary business advisor, liaison, and partner to divisional leadership and key stakeholder groups
Serves as a major point of contact and catalyst for problem resolution. Provides insightful and diplomatic communications
Oversees the implementation of all operational and administrative activities
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
Leads communication efforts for IT, through partnership with and utilizing the communication tools administered by the Dean’s communications department. Ensure faculty and staff are aware of IT initiatives, policies and procedures and performance measures and plans to improve and innovate
Serves as the subject matter expert and oversees "chargeback" operations where IT services and informatics are billed to SMPH departments or extramural funds.
Develops the division's financial strategy including planning, forecasts, budgets, and cash management that focus on attaining and sustaining long-term financial equilibrium in collaboration with university leadership
Works with senior administrative and academic leadership to design, establish, and maintain an administrative organizational structure to effectively and efficiently accomplish goals and objectives while appropriately defining duties and mitigating risk