Posting Details

Position Information

Fiscal Year


Position Title
Assistant Vice President, Infrastructure

Classification Title
Assistant Vice President

Department
CIO Office and leadership

Posting Number
P260192

Posting Link
https://www.ubjobs.buffalo.edu/postings/64114

Employer
State

Bargaining Unit
13 - MC Professional

Position Type
M/C Professional

Professional Appointment Term
Administrative

Salary Grade
MP3

Posting Detail Information

Position Summary

Assistant Vice President, Infrastructure
The University at Buffalo(UB) invites nominations and applications for the position of Assistant Vice President of Infrastructure (AVP). Reporting to the Vice President and Chief Information Officer, the AVP will be responsible for leading the Enterprise Infrastructure Services and Network and Communication Services units across UB's three campuses.

The Position
The Assistant Vice President for Infrastructure (AVP) is a dynamic and visionary leader that is a strategic partner and advisor to the Vice President and Chief Information Officer (VPCIO). This is a VPCIO Cabinet Leadership position that plays a pivotal role in shaping and growing the UB Information Technology (UBIT) organization to align with and advance the university's goals. As a member of the VPCIO Cabinet, the AVP will ensure that UBIT's people, processes, and technology are equipped to support the university's mission. The AVP directs special projects and strategic priorities as assigned by the VPCIO, spanning institutional planning, cross-divisional partnerships, and IT governance. This position serves as a senior thought leader in the university's digital transformation efforts, proactively contributing towards the future direction of technology at the university.

The AVP for Infrastructure provides strategic leadership for the Enterprise Infrastructure Services (EIS) and Network and Communication Services (NCS) units, ensuring UB's network, cloud, data center, and core computer environments remain secure, reliable, and scalable, while advancing technologies, systems, and processes to meet UB's goals. Working closely with campus partners and IT leadership, the AVP drives coordinated service delivery, continuous improvement, and infrastructure innovation that supports the university's academic, research, and administrative needs.

This is a newly created role, and the AVP will have the opportunity to shape how these two units - each with its own history, culture, and operating rhythm - come together as a single, unified infrastructure organization. The successful candidate will build trust across both teams while also thinking beyond day-to-day operations: reassessing UB's data center footprint, advancing a deliberate cloud and colocation strategy, and positioning the university's infrastructure to support an ambitious research and AI agenda. The AVP will need to balance the discipline required to keep mission-critical systems running with the vision to challenge long-standing practices and move UBIT's infrastructure into closer alignment with where the university is headed.

Key Responsibilities:

Departmental Leadership

• Provide strategic direction and oversight to the EIS and NCS units, which includes establishing and advancing a cohesive portfolio strategy aligned with the university's mission and goals and VPCIO priorities, ensuring coordination across infrastructure and communication systems, emerging technologies, and customer-facing services
• This role carries a substantive policymaking function. By directing the planning, design, and operation of the university's data networks, telecommunications, and enterprise infrastructure systems, the AVP leads the establishment and enforcement of the technical and operational policies that guide campus wide technology use, reliability, security, and compliance. The position's regular engagement with senior academic and administrative leadership ensures that infrastructure standards and related policies align with institutional priorities.
• Lead long-range and annual planning, including workforce and succession planning, budget oversight, and investment prioritization to ensure sustainable operations and future-ready capabilities
• Assess the current structure, staffing levels, and operations of EIS and NCS, and lead the organizational changes needed to address staffing gaps, evolving service demands, and succession needs, given the significant portion of both units' workforce eligible for retirement in the coming years
• Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement by promoting professional development, mentoring leaders, and enabling teams to deliver high-quality, secure, and customer-centered IT solutions

Drive Strategic Alignment

• Ensure that IT initiatives are closely aligned with the university's strategic goals and mission
• Work with university leadership to shape, prioritize, and execute projects that support academic, administrative, and research objectives, while balancing divisional advocacy with institutional priorities and shared enterprise outcomes

Foster Synergies

• Promote collaboration and synergy among UBIT departments including but not limited to Innovation, Enterprise Application Services, IT Customer Experience, and Research IT
• Leverage strengths and expertise to create a cohesive, efficient IT environment that enhances performance and innovation

Innovate and Transform

• Champion innovation and transformation and identify opportunities for technological advancements, process improvements, and new initiatives that move the university forward
• Lead the evaluation and evolution of UB's data center strategy, including assessment of colocation options and consolidation of aging, decentralized data center and server infrastructure across campus
• Advance UB's cloud adoption strategy, building on early planning efforts to shift appropriate administrative and enterprise systems to cloud and hybrid-cloud environments
• Partner with UBIT's Innovation and Research IT units, and academic and research partners to ensure infrastructure supports the university's growing AI and research computing needs
• Champion improvements in customer service and responsiveness across EIS and NCS, working to change perceptions of infrastructure as a barrier to progress and building stronger partnerships with academic and administrative units

Build and Strengthen UBIT

• In partnership with other AVPs and senior leaders within UBIT, build and strengthen the VPCIO organization in operating as an integrated leadership team
• Develop and implement strategies to enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of UBIT while fostering a culture of continuous improvement, and ensuring that the VPCIO is well-positioned to support the university's evolving needs

Buffalo Niagara
As a world-renowned research university, UB's intellectual capital and innovation are playing a vital role in Buffalo's resurgence as a thriving city that is a magnet for talented professionals, artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators who recognize the tremendous energy and momentum gathering here. Home to one of the nation's fastest growing populations of college graduates, the BuffaloNiagara region, with 1.2 million residents, is the state's second largest major metropolitan area, exceeded only by New York City. The region includes a diverse blend of communities, each with its own distinct personality, yet commonly characterized by a distinctly neighborly way of life, an unpretentious nature and spirited loyalty among residents. Buffalo's own strong sense of community, easy lifestyle, and affordability regularly place it in top ten lists from a variety of national publications for its overall quality of life.

Rich in natural resources and beauty, the Buffalo-Niagara area is a four-season region that offers the best for seasonal sports enthusiasts. University at Buffalo fans enjoy a full complement of NCAA division I sports with the UB Bulls, as well as the NFL's Buffalo Bills, the NH L's Buffalo Sabres, TripleA baseball's Buffalo Bisons, and the National Lacrosse League's Buffalo Bandits.

Less than a two-hour drive from Buffalo across the United States-Canada border is Toronto, the cultural, entertainment, and financial capital of Canada. Buffalo is also ideally located for easy access to many of America's major cities. The Buffalo-Niagara International Airport offers direct flights to more than 20 cities, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, DC, all only an hour's flight away.

UB has played a central role in the creation of a strong, sustainable knowledge economy and thriving entrepreneurial culture that are driving Buffalo's revitalization. Exemplified and driven by the centrally located Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, UB's Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Buffalo is experiencing a period of tremendous progress and momentum as well as unprecedented regional investments in the industries of the future and in the assets that ensure a satisfying quality of life for all its citizens.

Land Acknowledgment
UB acknowledges that our campuses operate on land that is the traditional territory of the Seneca Nation, a member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the region remains the home of the Haudenosaunee people. Further, we responsibly acknowledge the continuing impact of settler colonialism on the Haudenosaunee and their territories.

Our scholarly community values Indigenous cultures, histories, traditions, knowledge systems, and political entities and deeply appreciates the important role of Indigenous people in the history, the present and the future of our region, this country, and the world.

To Apply
The University at Buffalo has engaged Opus Partnersto support the recruitment of this position. Katie Dean, Senior Partner, and Thomas Lapierre, Senior Associate, are leading the search. Please direct all inquiries, nominations, and applications (resumes and letters of interest) electronically and in confidence to Thomas Lapierre at [email protected].

• Click here to learn more.

The expected hiring range for this position is $210,000-$225,000. This range takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to experience, skills, knowledge, abilities, education, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs. Salary offers are determined based on final candidate qualifications and experience.

This is a campus-based position.