Employee Recruitment, Development and Engagement

• We partnered with the Office of Human Resources (OHR) to financially carve out a larger merit pool and one-time payment initiatives for CMU employees, improving talent retention and helping employees weather the impacts of inflation while protecting university funding flexibility.
• Launched new center, the Center for Shared Prosperity, a university-community partnership to address barriers to equity in Pittsburgh. This was done in the context of CMU adding a fourth pillar, shared prosperity, to its mission. In addition to helping to setup CSP, the Finance Division provides collaboration and operating support, as well as mentoring and collaborating with the CSP business manager.
• The Finance DEIB Team facilitiated Team Building activities with all groups in the division since inception of the Strategic Plan. These activities have promoted a diverse atmosphere and increased the decision making capacity of the division, staff morale, and engagement with voices that have not previously been heard/represented.
• Majority of Finance Division staff participated in at least one DEIB activity in FY23. Participating in DEIB-related workshops and learning sessions increases cultural competencies, and sharpens inclusion skills.
• Created a DEIB internship; the fall 2022 intern has been working with the Administrative Support Team, and has been an integral part of implementing the Return to On-Campus Work Plan.
• Published a CFO Welcome Video to be shared with new employees and foster a sense of belonging and connection from day one.
• Launched the Finance Ambassador Program to work in conjunction with onboarding activities. The program matches ambassadors with new employees with the goal of building a personal connection and providing the new employee with one-one-one assistance and support. Ambassadors introduce new employees to other colleagues within the division and/or the university.

Financial Sustainability and Reporting

• CMU and Mastercard Foundation entered into a partnership providing a transformational investment of $275.7M to CMU-Africa. The Finance Division provided operatioonal support and reporting around this impactful gift, which will significantly expand CMU-Africa's programs in advanced engineering and technology education, research, and entrepreneurship. The growth of CMU-Africa will positively impact the global CMU community far into the future.
• Provided robust financial analysis in support of University Advancement's effort to conceptualize, secure and launch the Rales Fellows Program. Rales is a new $150M fellowship program at CMU that will broaden access to graduate STEM education at CMU for talented students from under-resourced and underrepresented backgrounds.
• Improved CMU's budget model by rebalancing tuition-based revenue incentives across colleges between undergraduate, graduate, and online program tuition for the next five years. This creates a financial pathway for CMU to fund future strategic priorities.
• Delivered the most comprehensive long-term model analysis and stress test scenarios to CMU's Board of Trustees by incorporating foundational initiatives that will drive the future of CMU, including the CMU Cloud Lab, Online Programs & Professional Education, and Housing Master Plan advancements.
• Successfully executed a complex strategy to shift excess working capital from reserves as well as the sale of Duolingo shares to the university's long-term pool, and issued a $70M bond to fund the expansion of the Richard King Mellon Science building. These actions created up to $30M of long-term economic value that can be used to support future capital renewal on the building.
• Published final Capital Project Program Assessment report in partnership with Vermeulens. The report found that major CMU capital projects costs and lifecycle fall below or in-line with similar projects at peer institutions. CMU proactively balances sustainability measures with long-term return on investment.
• Completed the Budget Creation and Monitoring audit in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers. PwC found that CMU has a well developed and mature financial management process.
• Conducted and completed all audits, which included special coordination with Federal sponsors and auditors, and delivered the financial statements with no material weaknesses, reportable conditions, or findings for six consecutive years. Clean audits not only reinforce trust in CMU, they impact everything from the universities tax exempt status, credit rating, bond issuance, charitable gifts, and more.

Policies, Processes and Compliance

• Piloted a Guided Buying platform to support unit buying with faster purchasing. Guided Buying provides "Amazon-like" catalog purchasing for a much more user-freindly experience, wiith streamlined pick-and-click purchasing.
• The Accounts Payable team engaged the Business Innovation Office (BIO) to lead a Lean Six Sigma project. This project provided insight into AP processes which highlights potential efficiencies. The report provides recommendations for proposed actions and next steps which will include the involvement and collaboration with AP's campus partners.. The next phase to implement recommendations will begin in February 2023.
• Partnering with Huron, we finalized the Chart of Accounts redesign, report, and efficiency recommendations (Phase I) and implementation (Phase II) is underway. We've closely engaged campus partners to gain insights for possible enhancements. The CoA redesign will enable real-time reviews of information, allowing for greater use of our data.
• Consolidated IT Help Desk to be centrally located for campus while creating longer availability times and more resource availability.
• Simplified Expense Report (ER) Audit and fully transitioned ER process to Accounts Payable.

Systems and Technology

• We completed a holistic assessment of the current state of budgeting and planning at CMU, which captured 96 unique business requirements across 70+ university stakeholders, carving out the roadmap for the future of financial planning at CMU. Successfully completed two RFPs related to this initiative.
• Together with Computing Services, our Procurement Services team deployed a bot to process Procurement credit card ordering, using robotic process automation (RPA) to eliminate approximately four hours per week of repetitive, transactional work. This was the first bot of its kind deployed at CMU.
• Implemented new Audit Change Request (ACR) system, which streamlines the process and significantly reduces effort from multiple teams while continuing to maintain the previous Oracle system.