CIO Partners Tapped by UMGC Ventures for Portfolio President and Chief Information Officer Search

September 16, 2022 – CIO Partners was recently selected by UMGC Ventures as its exclusive partner to lead the search for a portfolio president and chief information officer for AccelerEd. UMGC Ventures, a supporting organization to the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), and a portfolio company that includes AccelerEd as its prominent venture, wants an experienced portfolio president and CIO to  serve as the principal leader for AccelerEd’s managed services IT business. The president/CIO is responsible for executing a comprehensive enterprise-wide IT strategy, and ensuring its alignment with its core partner, UMGC, a 90,000 student online university that services students in the U.S. and overseas.

This executive will be expected to bring current knowledge and future vision of leveraging information and technology, business process reengineering, product and services development, and support for transformation to ensure a quality student, staff, and faculty experience, and to sustain operations for student success and competitive advantage. The portfolio president/CIO reports to the CEO of UMGC Ventures.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience as a CIO for a large ecommerce operation supporting higher education in a highly distributed workforce of professionals that support operations in the U.S. and globally, said CIO Partners. This individual should be well versed in IT strategy, governance, planning, development, and implementation, including but not limited to enterprise resource planning (ERP), tech stack modernization, systems architecture, telecommunications, database administration, web and portal development, cloud computing, and security and compliance issues. Additionally, the ideal candidate will have broad technical knowledge and skills, and a thorough understanding of current computing and emerging technologies to drive innovation and differentiation for a high growth online university.

Education & Experience

• 20-plus years of relevant industry experience leading IT strategy and operations for a large online higher education institution.
• A bachelor’s or master’s degree in related field; significant relevant credential / industry experience.
• Extensive experience in online higher education and deep expertise in IT and CIO level leadership. A consummate passion and commitment to delivering quality student, faculty, and administrative experiences.
• Experience in large digital transformations and tech and platform modernization initiatives to support a scalable, sustainable global online ecommerce operation.
• Broad technology knowledge and skills with the ability to demonstrate this through knowledge and understanding of the best ways to apply technology and solutions to meet business needs.
• Experience managing technology and development teams and working across a matrix of stakeholders to translate business requirements into solutions at scale.
• Demonstrated agility – and ability to build consensus among stakeholders.
• A commitment to excellent customer service and relationship management, effective oral and written communication, and presentation skills.
• Excellent interpersonal leadership skills with the ability to establish and maintain strong working relationships with staff, executives, faculty, and students.
• High energy level; enjoys a challenging and a dynamic fast-paced environment. A record of self-motivation, executive leadership, and personal initiative.

CIO Partners is looking for candidates with a business-oriented mindset as well as executive leadership experience in higher education and IT. The firm seeks a strong leader, with the ability to work with multiple partners and stakeholders to build relationships, while managing the prioritization of competing requests in a dynamic, results-driven environment. Experience with multi-year resource projects, technology plan monitoring, and management is also preferred.

Veteran Recruiters

Marietta, GA-based CIO Partners is focused on technology leadership searches across all industries and corporate sizes, from start-ups to Fortune 100 organizations. Founded in 2001, the firm specializes in and emphasizes that it understands the uniqueness of the top technology roles.

With over 25 years of experience in the technology sector, founder Mike Burgett brings a wealth of hands-on experience to his global clients and to his local community. Prior to founding CIO Partners, he was CIO for a $1 billion private Fortune 500 organization. There, he led technology services from an operational perspective and was able to customize and implement a process-based approach and customer service within a corporate IT organization. Mr. Burgett began his career as a systems engineer with the global technology consulting company Electronic Data Systems. As a technology consultant within the automotive engineering and manufacturing industry for General Motors, he honed his technical ability and developed his strong sense toward process and project management.

Related: CIO Partners Seeking Top IT Leader for Builders FirstSource

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media