Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration

Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration

locations
Boston, MA, US
time type
Full time

job requisition id
JR1766
Job Description

Wentworth Institute of Technology (“Wentworth”) was founded to “furnish education in the mechanical arts.” Today, almost 4,000 undergraduates pursue associate and bachelor’s degrees in 23 engineering, technology, design, and management disciplines across five schools:

School of Architecture and Design
School of Computing and Data Science
School of Engineering
School of Management
School of Sciences and Humanities
In addition to offering certificate programs, graduate students may pursue 13 master’s degrees. While Wentworth offers traditional semesters, the hallmark of a Wentworth education remains the robust co-op program, offering hands-on experiences that offer depth of learning, relevant experiences, and valuable networking opportunities. More than 38 percent of the class of 2023 were offered post-graduate full-time employment by their co-op employer. This approach to professionally relevant education is uniquely woven into the fabric of Wentworth, where students are encouraged to make connections across disciplines, in classrooms, labs, and as active participants in industry. Among the Class of 2022, 95 percent were employed or in graduate school within six months of graduation. Additionally, of those employed, 97 percent reported working in their desired field or major.

Wentworth is a member of the Colleges of the Fenway consortium, and shares many facilities, resources, and activities with nearby institutions. With this membership, Wentworth students are entitled to register for courses with participating neighboring institutions at no additional cost. Wentworth is also a member of the Tuition Exchange, a reciprocal scholarship opportunity for the dependents of eligible faculty and staff at 645+ member schools nationwide.

Wentworth earned the top spot in the latest New York Times college ranking when prioritizing earnings, economic mobility, and economic diversity among colleges in Massachusetts.

The Institute’s current operating budget is $151 million, and the value of its endowment is $161 million. In April, Moody's affirmed Wentworth’s credit rating at the current level of Baa1 with a stable outlook.

History
Wentworth was founded in 1904 when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts granted a charter to establish a corporation under the name of Wentworth Institute. Post-Civil War industrial expansion, urbanization, and immigration created the need for new economic and employment opportunities and the means of fulfilling that need. The university’s founder, Arioch Wentworth, perceived a gap in the educational opportunities available to clever and ambitious young people for whom a traditional education was impractical and uninteresting. A mechanic by trade, Mr. Wentworth attributed his professional success to knowing how to use his hands and wanted others to follow in his footsteps. To implement his vision at scale, he resolved to launch a school based on honesty, energy, and creativity that would prepare graduates to excel and advance in their chosen fields of endeavor.

Groundbreaking took place in 1910 at the current campus at the intersection of the bustling Fenway, Mission Hill, and Roxbury neighborhoods and in 1911, Wentworth opened its doors to 244 students. In 1913, Vincent Robinson became the first Black student to graduate from Wentworth, earning a Machine Work Certificate. A little more than a decade after Wentworth was founded, the Institute served a major role in military support operations, which during World War I transformed the university’s campus into “Camp Wentworth” for the training of servicemembers heading off to battlefields and war-support positions.

Wentworth would become a co-ed institution in 1972. This labor force tradition continues today with multiple unions operating on campus and Wentworth holding active partnerships with local and national trade and labor groups such as the IBEW and the Joint Apprentice and Training Committee of Greater Boston (JATC).

Providing a transformative student experience has been at the heart of Wentworth’s growth, innovation, and creative educational opportunity development. In May 2012, Wentworth formed Accelerate, the university’s Innovation + Entrepreneurship Center, to foster inventive thinking and entrepreneurial confidence among students. In 2022, supported by a $2 million dollar gift from the PDB Foundation, Wentworth launched the Accelerate Co-op for Entrepreneurs (“ACE”) program for students to use their co-op to launch and grow a business.

Over the past 120 years, Wentworth has become one of the country’s premier STEM institutions and is known around the world for educating great and successful leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, scientists, architects, and business groundbreakers.

Academics
Wentworth offers 23 undergraduate and 13 master’s degree programs across five distinct Schools and through a variety of pathways: full-time, part-time, hybrid, and online. Wentworth also offers minors, dual graduate degrees, graduate certificates, and accelerated three-year undergraduate degrees along with 3+1, 4+1, and 4+2 undergraduate and graduate degree combinations.

School of Architecture and Design

School of Computing & Data Science

School of Engineering

School of Management

School of Sciences & Humanities

Wentworth offers one of the nation’s most comprehensive Cooperative Education (co-op) programs. Undergraduate students at Wentworth are required to complete two co-op semesters to graduate. During co-op, students gain hands-on experience and put the knowledge and skills they forge in the classroom into practice while still in school. By partnering with leading industry organizations, Wentworth’s co-op program lets students find solutions to real-world problems while working in their chosen fields while fostering valuable professional connections that are crucial to success in the modern workforce.

By integrating a hands-on approach into academics, in the classroom, and through co-op, Wentworth prioritizes the long-term career success of our students. This close connection between academic experience and on-the-job proficiency directly translates to higher earnings and accelerated career growth.

Facilities
The 31-acre campus in the heart of Boston boasts a tree-lined quad, modern and traditional residence halls, diverse campus amenities, the Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons, multiple computer centers, a 24-hour police department, and numerous social activities. The campus also features 60+ state of the art labs and studios including the Casella Robotics Laboratory, the state-of-the-art BOND Virtual Design and Construction Lab, and ample design studios. In fact, Wentworth has achieved an impressive 1:1 student-to-studio space ratio.

In February 2024, Wentworth Institute of Technology announced a bold 10-year plan to dramatically transform its physical campus. The plan will create technologically advanced spaces for hands-on learning in preparation for STEM, design and management careers and double the public green spaces on campus, affirming Wentworth’s commitment to sustainability and resiliency. Among the plan’s highlights are new residence halls, a new athletics field house, as well as new and renovated academic spaces.

Executive Leadership
Mark A. Thompson, Ph.D., became the fifth president of Wentworth Institute of Technology in 2019. President Thompson’s career in higher education spans more than 30 years—from teaching and advising students at Marshall University and Morehouse College to serving in senior administration roles at Quinnipiac University. Thompson’s academic research has focused on the consequences of residential housing segregation, issues related to labor market discrimination, and assessing the impact of intellectual property rights on the economic growth rates of developing countries.

During his tenure, President Thompson has helped forge remarkable progress in part due to his trademark sense of “optimistic urgency.”

President Thompson’s accomplishments include the following:

Assembling the most diverse and specialized senior administrative team in Wentworth’s history, including the first vice president for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and first director of Military-Connected Services, the latter being a new office to help usher men and women from the Armed Forces through the university and into promising civilian careers.

Actively enculturating inclusive excellence into all the university does, with a new division leading the way.

Streamlining and reorganizing the institution’s academic structure.

Bolstering Wentworth’s reputation as a university of opportunity whose graduates are in high demand—perhaps now more than ever—for the skills, experience, and mindset they bring to the work force and world at large.

Establishing and meeting the ambitious goal of raising $10 million for the ASAP (“Advancing Student Access and Potential”) scholarship fund.

Re-committing the university to attracting and admitting students from underrepresented groups and supporting and connecting public school students and employers in Boston with model high school to career “pipeline” initiatives.

The Role

The Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration (“SVP”) will oversee budgeting and forecasting, financial planning and analysis, finances, accounting, treasury, and endowment. The SVP will provide premier service to the university in the stewardship of its financial, human, physical, technological, and informational resources.

In a newly expanded critical role, the SVP is a key partner in developing the Institution’s financial strategy and working collaboratively with the President and University leadership, as well as the Board of Trustees, ensuring that the institutions operational and capital resources are deployed responsibly and consistently with the strategic plan of the institution. The SVP will directly report to the President, Mark Thompson.

With a focus on operational excellence and service, the SVP will oversee a portfolio of divisional units, including the following:

Finance

Financial planning and analysis

Purchasing and auxiliary enterprise services

Information technology

Facilities planning and business management

Real estate and capital projects

Human resources and people operations

Legal compliance and risk management

Campus safety units

Reporting to the SVP are the following positions:

Vice President and General Counsel

Vice President of Technology and Chief Information Officer

Vice President of Business

Chief Human Resources Officer

Chief of Police

Associate Vice President of Finance

The SVP will staff the Resources and Audit Committees of the Board of Trustees.

Priorities

In addition to the day-to-day responsibilities of the role, the SVP will be expected to focus on the following opportunities:

Financial. Develop and execute financial strategies aligned with the University's growth objectives and long-term vision.

Operations. Develop and implement recommendations concerning the strategic allocation of resources, business processes, and policies; develop strategies to improve financial performance and efficiency; and identify trends and changes in resource management. Ensure that the institution complies with financial regulatory, legal, administrative, collectively bargained, contractual, procedural, and accounting standards of excellence.

Transformational Strategy. Collaborate with the leaders of Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Institutional Advancement and External Relations, and Enrollment Management among others, to secure and maximize revenues, contain costs, invest and maximize endowment funds, and plan for the resource needs of technology, finance, facilities, and capital projects.

Leadership. Takes a long-term view and builds a shared vision with others; acts as a catalyst for organization change. Influences others and empowers division leaders to translate vision into action.

Qualifications

The successful candidate will have an established record of progressively responsible positions in relevant finance and administrative roles. A bachelor’s degree is required, and an MBA, CPA, or other advanced degree is preferred.

The successful candidate will demonstrate an established record of progressively responsible positions in relevant finance and administrative roles, preferably in higher education. The ideal candidate will be a very experienced manager with strong financial and business acumen skills who is also knowledgeable regarding the other critical areas of oversight. They will need to be collaborative, transparent, and an excellent communicator. Candidates must have a track record of managing banking relationships, debt financing, and capital raising activities. Prior experience working with boards of trustees or related governance structure strongly desired.