VICE PRESIDENT FOR FINANCIAL PLANNING AND ANALYTICS — CHIEF BUDGET OFFICER

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, seeks a visionary and strategic leader for the Vice President for Financial Planning and Analytics—Chief Budget Officer (VPFPA-CBO). This position will be pivotal in shaping the University's financial future and integral to guiding long-term strategic planning. The VPFPA-CBO will play a key role in developing financial plans, evaluating the impact of long-range planning, and driving new enterprise-wide initiatives while fostering business analytics and ensuring data integrity across Rutgers. The University recently adopted a policy to guide and develop a holistic, highly analytical, and forward-looking approach to budgeting, financial management, and resource planning and allocation. The VPFPA-CBO will significantly advance this policy, transform and modernize Rutgers' financial and analytical functions, shape culture, and guide critical decisions that impact long-term planning for the University.

As a leading research institution, Rutgers is the premier public University and the flagship institution of New Jersey. The university champions teaching excellence, cutting-edge research, and innovative, best-in-class services, solutions, and clinical care. Rutgers is home to 8,700 faculty, 14,900 staff, and over 69,000 undergraduate and graduate students across campuses in New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden, and a significant academic and clinical health sciences presence that spans the State. Rutgers' Division of University Finance and Administration (UFA) advances the University's strategic priorities by managing all central financial, administrative, and student information systems and processes.

Reporting directly to the Executive Vice President (EVP) – Chief Financial Officer and University Treasurer, and serving on the UFA leadership team, the VPFPA-CBO will develop and implement comprehensive financial strategies that support Rutgers' mission, strategic goals, and core educational and administrative objectives. The VPFPA-CBO will provide university-wide leadership and strategic oversight in financial planning, budgeting, and data analytics. As a senior advisor to the EVP, the VPFPA-CBO will represent the EVP as needed and appropriate.

Rutgers has retained Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm, to assist in conducting this important search and identifying outstanding candidates. As indicated at the end of this document, all inquiries, applications, and nominations for this opportunity should be directed to the search firm.

KEY OPPORTUNITIES + CHALLENGES

The successful candidate will be a collaborative, creative leader who can provide a fresh perspective and analytical rigor to Rutgers' budgeting and financial planning while serving as a trusted strategic thought partner to the University's financial leaders. Specifically, the VPFPA-CBO will be expected to address the following opportunities and challenges:

The VPFPA-CBO leads the development and execution of comprehensive budgeting and financial planning strategies, including long-range planning and multi-year projections for the University and its cost centers. In partnership with Chief Business Officers from Chancellor Units, the VPFPA-CBO will craft and implement budgets, business plans, and long-term economic plans for their respective campuses. The VPFPA-CBO oversees the budget and planning process, ensuring alignment with the University's strategic mission and goals, primarily through the Responsibility-Center Management (RCM) budget tool. Rutgers is a large and very decentralized institution. The VPFPA-CBO will manage the highly complex budgetary issues across the University, analyzing critical decisions' short-term and long-term financial impacts and working with unit leaders to help them understand how decisions in one part of the University affect and influence others.

The VPFPA-CBO will represent the financial division by presenting budget plans, capital forecasting, and other critical topics to the Board of Governors and Trustees. To ensure the VPFPA-CBO keeps abreast of industry best practices, the VPFPA-CBO will attend conferences, workshops, and educational programs, sharing knowledge within the higher education community through presentations at industry events. They will share knowledge and drive financial business planning competence across the University by designing and delivering training programs that equip university leaders to develop strategic, operational, and capital budgets aligned with institutional goals.

The VPFPA-CBO will provide data, tools, and in-depth financial and business analysis to support executive decision-making, strategy formulation, growth planning, and significant initiatives. The units overseen by the VPFPA-CBO prepare interim forecasts, performance metrics, and ad hoc financial analyses to the EVP-CFO and other campus leaders to ensure informed decision-making and to provide templates and documents that support consistency and uniformity across budgets, reports, and planning.

Rutgers has recently adopted a financial sustainability policy to ensure the institution's long-term financial health by charting a strategic, multi-year approach to financial planning. The VPFPA-CBO will be a strategic partner to the EVP-CFO and the President's Cabinet in developing and implementing initiatives to strengthen financial performance, financial position, and asset management. They will also collaborate closely with the Chief Business Officers of the Chancellor Units to advance efforts to generate and diversify revenue, increase operational efficiency and effectiveness, reduce costs, and comprehensively assess programs. They will leverage strong communication skills to increase transparency, enable the free exchange of ideas and information, and ensure that each unit understands how their actions and decisions impact one another and the University as a whole. To support, guide, and assess the efficacy of this work, the VPFPA-CBO and their team will also provide stakeholders with the necessary data and analytics.

The VPFPA-CBO will collaborate closely with the EVP-CFO and the Vice Presidents for Finance and for Planning, Development, and Design to maintain the University's multi-year capital plan. The VPFPA-CBO will provide essential financial data to assess debt requirements and evaluate the impacts of capital decisions on the balance sheet. They will ensure that the strategic financial model incorporates capital needs and supports the institution's long-term growth objectives.

UFA recently created a Data Analytics and Reporting team to support financial systems literacy at Rutgers and produce and provide the financial reports, analytics, models, forecasts, and projections needed by business units across the University. A new Chief Data Officer (CDO) was recently hired to support this work. The VPFPA-CBO will be expected to create structure and provide direction to this developing team, integrating the group into the UFA division and broader Rutgers ecosystem.

As the leader of data stewardship for UFA, the VPFPA-CBO will bring a forward-thinking approach and a continuous improvement mindset to data analytics, strategically guiding analytical activities to most effectively enhance financial and strategic planning, budgeting, and executive decision support. Collaborating with the CDO and the VP for Institutional Research and Decision Support, the VPFPA-CBO will promote sound business analytics and maintain data integrity. To ensure data-driven insights inform resource allocation and strategic decisions, the VPFPA-CBO will advance proposals for IT system enhancements that support and further the University's analytical capacities. To this end, the VPFPA-CBO will partner closely with the Vice President of UFA Operations and Project Executive and the Vice President of Enterprise Applications and Advanced Research Computing to implement and optimize system modifications and upgrades. The VPFPA-CBO will be acutely aware that continuous improvement of processes is vital to support the University's strategic objectives and will always look for ways to adopt new technologies, automate workflows, reduce risk, and enhance the quality of financial information.

The VPFPA-CBO will provide leadership and supervision to Financial Planning & Analytics, which includes the UFA Financial Planning, Analysis, and Budget team and the UFA Data Analytics and Reporting team. They will be expected to develop and support these teams, utilizing seasoned members' institutional knowledge and expertise while providing mentorship and encouraging professional development for all team members. The VPFPA-CBO will cultivate a culture of flexibility, creativity, mutual respect, integrity, and shared accountability, motivating teams to provide a high level of service across the University. Given Rutgers' strategic goals around financial sustainability and analytics, it will be imperative that the VPFPA-CBO recruit, retain, and build a talented team of budget and finance professionals that can support and sustain institutional needs and priorities.