Assistant Vice President, IT Infrastructure and Operations

ITS collaborates with campus partners to support the mission of the University of Chicago through the consistent delivery of high-quality solutions and services. We provide secure, stable, and reliable infrastructure and applications to support the mission of the University. We support and enable faculty research and teaching with the effective use of technology. We simplify the technology experience for faculty, students, alumni, and staff, and we ensure technology is mobile-friendly and accessible.

We identify, manage, and mitigate the technology risks of the University.

Reporting to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and serving on the ITS Senior Leadership Team, the Assistant Vice President for IT Infrastructure and Operations provides executive leadership for the technology foundations and services that enable the University’s mission. The portfolio includes enterprise networks, computing and storage, cloud infrastructure, data center services, collaboration technologies, service management, end-user support, and enterprise architecture. This role oversees all telecommunications services, serving both the University and University of Chicago Medicine, and leads approximately 120 staff, together with contractors.

The Assistant Vice President sets strategic direction, develops leaders, and is accountable for service reliability, user experience, operational risk, and financial performance across the portfolio. This leader modernizes infrastructure and service delivery, coordinates shared priorities with unit IT directors and University of Chicago Medicine technology leaders, and oversees major technology vendor relationships and enterprise agreements. Digital Trust owns technology disaster recovery and service resilience;

this role coordinates the portfolio’s implementation and operational support. AI and Data strategy and organizational leadership reside outside this position.

• Develop and execute a multiyear infrastructure, cloud, and architecture roadmap aligned with University priorities, service needs, risk, and financial capacity; establish clear milestones and measures of value.
• Lead modernization of hybrid infrastructure and service delivery through automation, integrated monitoring, and responsible use of AI. Reduce technical debt and complexity through disciplined lifecycle planning, standardization, and retirement of redundant services.
• Prepare infrastructure and architecture for evolving research, data-intensive workloads, and AI-enabled services, including secure integration and operational readiness, in partnership with the leaders accountable for those capabilities.
• Lead reliable, scalable, accessible, and secure delivery of portfolio services. Establish service ownership, service-level objectives, capacity plans, and support models appropriate to critical University needs.
• Direct the full telecommunications portfolio for the University and University of Chicago Medicine, including strategy, service delivery, modernization, carrier relationships, and financial performance. Align service levels, support, and change planning with academic, research, administrative, and clinical requirements.
• Direct service management and end-user support, including the service catalog, incident and problem management, change and release practices, asset and configuration management, and service improvement.
• Set and review measures of availability, performance, recovery, user satisfaction, delivery effectiveness, and cost. Use operational data and campus feedback to improve services and make accountability visible.
• Lead the portfolio’s response to major service disruptions, including coordinated restoration, timely stakeholder communications, and follow-through on lessons learned.
• Partner with information security on cybersecurity incident response.
• Implement security and privacy requirements in portfolio services in partnership with the Chief Information Security Officer and relevant control owners. Ensure timely remediation of vulnerabilities, secure configurations, effective access controls, and resolution of audit findings.
• Direct operating and capital budgets, workforce planning, and investment prioritization for infrastructure and Operations. Present clear business cases and tradeoffs that balance reliability, modernization, institutional value, and affordability.
• Optimize portfolio costs through lifecycle planning, total cost of ownership analysis, cloud…