Chief Information Officer

Position Summary

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) serves as the visionary leader of IT services and collaborates across the College to support strategic growth and initiatives aligned with the College’s mission, values, and strategic plan. The CIO will establish an institution-wide strategy to address the rapid growth of Information Technology needs, data security, and trends in Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, the CIO will provide technology insights to senior-level colleagues how to best leverage IT resources. Therefore, the CIO must stay current with industry trends, resource needs projections, and demand-driven data to inform the IT decision-making process at the College effectively. This is a full-time, 12-month, benefit eligible position.

Salary & Benefits:

• Anticipated Hiring Range: $111,000 - $140,000/annual - depending on education and experience
• Full Salary Range: $111,000 - $170,000/annual - depending on education and experience
• Cafeteria Plan: In addition to the base compensation, benefits-eligible employees receive an extra $5,640 per year to put toward benefit costs or to be used as additional take-home pay
• Paid Holidays: 21 (including a full week off between Christmas and New Year’s Day and over Spring Break)
• Vacation & Sick Leave: Approximately 17 paid vacation days & 9 paid sick leave days accrued annually
• Health Insurance and Other Coverage: see https://www.coconino.edu/benefits/full-time-benefits

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide a clear vision for information technology to maximize student success and institutional effectiveness, aligning IT strategy with the College's mission and goals.
• Contribute to high-level decision-making by providing insights, analysis, and recommendations based on a deep understanding of trends in higher education, institutional needs, and internal capabilities.
• Recognize diverse needs and concerns of students and stakeholders, and ensure that IT decision-making is consistently, accurately, and effectively driven by comprehensive data and analysis.
• Direct the assessment of IT systems to ensure compliance with state-mandated regulations and CCC goals, policy, procedures, standards, and objectives.
• Lead a diverse team of IT professionals, embracing the service-oriented, collaborative culture, and providing guidance, mentorship, and professional development opportunities.
• Provide leadership, advice, counsel, and assessment of IT team members in an inclusive environment that encourages participation and facilitates the sharing of knowledge.
• Assess, select, and implement suitable technologies to streamline operations, drive innovation, and optimize strategic benefits for the College.
• Collaborate closely with senior leaders to foster a cohesive leadership team, working collectively to address challenges, exploit opportunities, and drive institutional success.
• Collaborate closely with academic and administrative departments to understand their technology needs and provide solutions that enhance their activities.
• Strengthen relationships across the College’s functional areas and physical locations to enhance holistic student success through collaboration and transparency.
• Foster and cultivate strong partnerships by maintaining a consistent presence on campus, being accessible and highly visible to students, faculty, and staff.
• Assists in interfacing with individual department heads and users to design and generate integrated data
• Collaborate with the Director of IT and Security to develop and implement cybersecurity strategies, ensuring data privacy and protection against cyber threats, while maintaining compliance with state-mandated regulations and institutional policies.
• Effectively communicate the College's IT strategy to internal and external audiences, fostering transparent communication across all levels of the organization.
• Collaborate with the department to engage with technology vendors and partners to evaluate products, negotiate contracts, and ensure services align with the College’s requirements.
• Assess IT operations and implement continuous improvement plans, utilizing assessment strategies to guide enhancements.
• Ensure a robust and secure CCC technology infrastructure, including networks, servers, storage, and data centers, to ensure optimal performance and availability.
• Establish an IT roadmap for major applications and infrastructure that balances the need to stabilize existing solutions with investments in emerging technological directions.
• Monitor and evaluate emerging technology and standards. When potential application is identified, conducts feasibility studies and research to evaluate benefits, cost significance, threats, opportunities, strategies, and other implications.
• Assess and maintain effective technologies in classrooms and online learning spaces, ensuring they support the College’s teaching and learning objectives.
• Oversee the work surrounding the Accessible Technology Initiatives (ATI) and contributes to the prioritization and improvement of the initiatives with focus on the website and procurement focus areas
• Oversee the management of various software applications and systems used by CCC for functions such as student and academic affairs, finance, human resources, public relations, foundation, and strategic initiatives.
• Develop, implement, and update institutional IT policies, procedures, protocols, and standards with broad constituent input and governance structures as appropriate.
• Collaborate with the department to develop and manage the IT budget, ensuring that resources are allocated effectively to support the institution’s technology initiatives while optimizing cost efficiencies.
• Actively participate in state and national professional organizations, as well as collaborate with other colleges and universities, to remain current with technology responsibilities.
• Partners collaboratively with colleagues leveraging technology to enable innovation and maximize efficiency.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Ability to build strong relationships, establish trust, and to work with diverse members of the college community including faculty, students, and staff towards a commitment to open communications and transparency. Solid understanding of an IT infrastructure in a multi-campus setting. Strong understanding of the Ellucian Banner product and services. Proficiency in the use of the Microsoft Office suite. Ability to successful lead technology implementation and strategic planning focused on good management practices, and the assessment and evaluation of institutional needs, opportunities, and future direction. Currency with respect to industry trends. Strong understanding of risk management and compliance in the IT space within higher education. A collaborative, highly visible, transparent, and approachable student-centered leadership style. Strong change management skills. Strong social skills, reflective listening skills, emotional intelligence, and the ability to build relationships. Excellent oral and written language skills. Ability to work effectively in a multi-ethnic/multi-cultural environment with students, faculty, staff, and leaders.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration or directly-related field, and a minimum of 7 years’ experience in leadership positions within IT environments and significant experience in higher education; or a Master's degree, and a minimum of 5 years’ experience; or any equivalent combination of education and experience sufficient to successfully perform the essential duties of the job and/or as approved by the Human Resources department.

Preferred Qualifications

• Preferred terminal degree in Information Technology or a related field.
• Experience with or extensive knowledge of the community college environment.
• Understanding and articulating, to the College’s leadership, new developments in IT that can be “disruptors” i.e., Artificial Intelligence.
• Broad understanding of pertinent and current IT design practices and methodologies including telephone systems migration, cloud migration, security and cybersecurity, IT Services Management, project management, and IT best practices and industry standards.
• Understanding the Achieving the Dream and Guided Pathways framework and its implications for student success.