Leading Operational Change: Taking Advantage of Technology Adoptions

David Moore is a financial leader with more than 20 years of higher education experience. Moore  serves as the vice president for financial planning and analytics and chief budget officer at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. In his role, Moore provides university wide leadership and broad strategic oversight of financial planning, budgeting, and data analytics that is advancing the transformation of the university’s financial functions, shaping how the university makes decisions, and impacting long-term planning for the university. Moore also serves as a peer evaluator for Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Prior to joining Rutgers, Moore served as assistant vice president and chief budget officer at George Mason University and worked in higher education administration within the University of California System and as a budget analyst in California’s State Department of Finance.

Moore has attended Harvard’s Institutes for Management and Leadership in Education (MLE) and Educational Management (IEM) programs.

As senior vice president and chief information officer, Michele L. Norin is Rutgers’ institutional leader for technology. Her chief responsibility is to provide leadership in the strategic adoption and use of information technology in support of the university’s vision for excellence in research, teaching, outreach, and lifelong learning.

Theresa Pascoe is an associate vice president for finance at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, where she oversees financial planning, budgeting and analysis; treasury and debt management; and investments. Stevens is currently implementing Workday Financials, following previous implementations of Workday HCM and Student, as well as an implementation of Adaptive in 2023 that Pascoe co-led with a Stevens IT colleague. 

Prior to joining Stevens in 2018, Pascoe was director of budget and planning at Barnard College, where she implemented the college's first institutional budgeting software.

Tej Patel is the vice president for information technology and chief information officer at Villanova University, where he leads the university's technology strategy to enhance teaching, research, business operations, and the student experience. Patel focuses on fostering innovation, aligning technology with Villanova’s strategic goals, and ensuring seamless service delivery across the institution. Before Villanova, Patel held the CIO role at Stevens Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, he led digital strategies, developed a four-year IT roadmap, and implemented key initiatives like Cloud First and Online Learning for Penn Nursing. He also managed IT for a hospital and spearheaded IT merger and acquisition projects. A seasoned technologist, Patel excels at driving innovation, solving complex challenges, building high-performing teams, and creating customer-centric IT services.

Cathy Bates is a senior principal and associate partner at Vantage Technology Consulting Group. She has more than 30 years of experience in higher education with a strong focus on strategic planning, governance, and initiatives that transform academic, administrative, and research capabilities. At Vantage, Bates works directly with IT and institutional leaders on large, mission-focused projects including strategic planning, organizational assessments, data governance, and IT governance. Bates initiated the Vantage Leadership Lounge Program that works with over 20 well-known higher education CIOs in a co-mentoring model to bring current and future leaders together to learn from one another.

Bates is currently a member of the EDUCAUSE Corporate Engagement Advisory Committee which advises on strategic directions for corporate engagement programming, events, publications, and resources developed to support and evolve the higher education technology market. Bates holds a bachelor's of science in applied computer science and a master's of education in secondary education and attended the Women’s Management Institute of Higher Education Resource Center (HERS). 

Susan Featherston, MPH, is a senior strategic consultant at Vantage. Featherston has employed her love of data across various industries such as non-profits, higher education, federal government (CDC), and academic research for the past 20 years. She brings a deep understanding of strategic operations within higher education, focusing on analytics, data governance, change management, organizational strategy, service and process improvement, and executive communications. Prior to joining Vantage, Featherston held leadership roles at Colorado School of Mines and Emory University. Most recently, she managed Department of Labor IT registered apprenticeship programs in cybersecurity, devops, and software development for a Denver workforce development non-profit. Her strong program leadership resulted in a 2022 Colorado Apprenticeship Award and an invitation to attend the White House’s 2022 National Apprenticeship Week event. 

Featherston holds a master's of public health in environmental health from Emory University and a bachelor's of science in exercise science from the University of Mississippi.