We are pleased to announce the appointment of a Chief Transformation Officer to the university.
Chris Brunelle has been seconded to the role of Chief Transformation Officer and will be assembling a team of dedicated professionals from across the university to drive the transformation necessary for us to not only address many of the challenges posed by our current fiscal environment, but to best position us to continue to achieve excellence in teaching, research and community engagement. Chris recently co-led with Julie Naylor (General Manager, College of Natural and Applied Sciences) the institution-wide analysis of the integrated transformation and continuous improvement program. We would like to thank them both for delivering on this important work.
This is a pan-university opportunity to focus on existing work across the academy and university wide services, and underscores the university’s commitment to our operating model, including colleges, centres of expertise and the partnership model. Chris will leverage existing structure and budgets so this will not result in any net new expenses for the university.
Chris’s first task will be to review the efforts to date and deliver several recommendations for how the new transformation function will be operationalized. We expect those recommendations to be delivered to PEC this fall. He plans to begin by focusing on the work delivered through university-wide services.
Chris has a strong mandate and an aggressive timeline. In consultation with vice-presidents and academic leadership, Chris will engage with the university community, including through governance channels, and examine existing priorities across the institution to establish university-wide priorities. These will guide the focus, the work, and serve as the metric by which success is measured.
With continued pressure on our faculty and staff to perform and deliver, it is vital that we clearly articulate the priority areas for focus and efforts. This is something we committed to in the People Strategy as a way to support teams who need to reprioritize or adjust their workloads.
Chris is well-suited to take on this task. In his 18 years at the 伊人直播, he has held leadership roles within the Office of the Registrar and Provost Office, where he led and supported transformation initiatives focused on enhancing operational efficiency, improving the faculty, staff, and student experience, and fostering innovation.
Please join us in welcoming Chris to his new role and in supporting the continuation of this critical work.
Verna Yiu
Provost and Vice-President, Academic
Todd Gilchrist
Vice-President, University Services, Operations + Finance