• 2012 Agenda
• Speakers Biographies
• Parc 55 Wyndham-Union Square Hotel Information
• Registration
• BOI Scenarios
• BOI Pre-Work
• BOI Post-Work
• Frequently Asked Questions

Presenter and Speaker Biographies - November 26 – November 29, 2012

MONIR AHMED is Monir Assistant Vice Chancellor for Business & Finance at the University of California, Merced. He transferred from UCLA to serve as the founding director of Business & Finance, and later was promoted to his current role with expanded responsibility. As an early arrival to the campus community in 2001 on a brand new research university, Monir worked with other founding members to develop and deploy the necessary administrative services for the campus. Monir currently manages a broad range of financial and administrative services on the youngest of UC Campuses.

Prior to coming to Merced from UCLA Monir worked in a number of departments with varied responsibilities, including Transportation Services, Corporate Accounting and in the Immediate Office of the Vice Chancellor for Administration.

Monir has served on many campus and systemwide committees on process improvement and administrative efficiency initiatives over the years. Under his leadership, several units within Business & Finance at UC Merced have received regional and national recognition numerous times for agility and excellence.

DEBRA ALMASON is the External Relations Manager at UC Office of the President. In addition to her responsibilities as External Relations Manager, Debra has played a significant role in increasing the utilization of the system wide UC travel program – Connexxus – from 0%-43% resulting in $4.4 million program savings in 2010 and $6.5 million program savings for 2011. In-addition, Debra has worked with UC Academic Senate staff in developing a customized travel program to handle intra-California travel in connection with senate business resulting in $96K savings during 2011.

Prior to joining the University in 2008, Debra served in many leadership roles, one of which was as Travel Director for a Fortune 500. Much of the success of the Connexxus program is due to her work with the Travel Council across the UC system, and her experience in dealing with corporate providers in the airline, hotel, rental car and rail spaces. Debra has the vision, goals and plans to take the Connexxus program to the next level, which will ultimately result in achieving our goals of 80% utilization and system wide savings of up to $18 million per year. The Connexxus program is one of the key Working Smarter initiatives and Debra has the skills, industry knowledge and professional working relationships with our campus and medical center contacts to help us achieve our goals.

MIA L. BELK joined the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) in December 2009 as a member of the Labor and Employment team. She serves as the primary legal adviser to the University's systemwide Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity Officers. She regularly provides counsel and training to University administrators and managers on issues relating to sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, affirmative action, wage and hour, and background checks. In addition, she is one of the primary legal advisors concerning the CUE and AFSCME PCT bargaining units and regularly oversees and manages unfair practice charges filed at PERB. She provides counsel on issues under HEERA, including notice obligations, scope of bargaining, request for information, unit modifications, duty to bargain, as well as other labor related matters. Her specialty areas include wage and hour, affirmative action, discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, disability discrimination, business immigration, employee privacy rights, FEHA, Title VII, background checks, and compliance under federal law. She routinely provides training in these areas.

Prior to joining the University of California, Mia was Assistant General Counsel for US Airways in Tempe, Arizona. While at US Airways, her primary practice areas were labor relations including CBA negotiations, and labor arbitrations, employment law, health and safety, business immigration, wrongful termination and employment discrimination. She has successfully mediated, arbitrated and represented employers in administrative hearings and federal court cases.

NATHAN BROSTROM is the Executive Vice President for Business Operations. Brostrom graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University and holds a master's degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Before joining UC, Brostrom was the manager of the Western Region Public Finance Group for J.P. Morgan Securities in San Francisco, a position he held for nearly three of his 10 years with the firm. As head of the Western Region Public Finance Group, he oversaw the largest municipal deal in U.S. history at that time, an $11.3 billion bond sale for the state of California.

Previously, he had performed roles with increasing responsibility at Merrill Lynch Capital Partners, J.P. Morgan, Quarterdeck Investment Partners and the California State Treasurer's Office, where he worked with former California Treasurer Kathleen Brown, managing financings and helping to develop economic development programs in underserved regions of California.

As executive vice president, Brostrom serves as chief administrative officer for the University of California system, with responsibility over its systemwide budget, facility construction and maintenance, real estate management, human resource administration and information technology support. He also oversees the budget and administration of the Office of the President, including the ongoing restructuring process.

JIM CORKILL is the Controller at UC Santa Barbara. In addition to his responsibilities as Controller, Jim has management responsibility for payroll, general accounting, post award administration, accounts payable, student billing and receivable, purchasing, contracts, central stores, mail services plant accounting and all financial reporting. He is very involved with all aspects of systems development and process improvements for these areas.

Prior to joining the University in 1999, Jim worked as an Accounting Manager for a national workers compensation company. He has also performed many nonprofit audits while working for a regional accounting firm. Jim is a Certified Public Accountant and graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

GRACE CRICKETTE is the University of California's Chief Risk Officer. Major initiatives for the Risk Services department include reducing the cost of risk, implementing system and local safety programs, improving claims management systems, developing risk financing strategies, and implementing Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and Emergency Management and Business Continuity Planning throughout the University.

Grace joined the University in December of 2004 after thirteen years as a Vice President and Officer in audit, insurance, safety and human resources capacities for the equipment and construction industry. Grace graduated with distinction from the University of Redlands with a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration and holds a variety of professional designations in the areas of claims, safety, audit and human resources, including Associate in Risk Management and Senior Professional in Human Resources. In 2008, Grace received the Risk Innovator Award for innovation and excellence in risk management in Higher Education. She received recognition as Information Security Executive (ISE) of the Year West Award 2011 and National Award 2011 for Higher Education/Non Profit Sector for innovative problem solving related to a collaborative partnership with the University's Chief Information Officer and other Information Technology (IT) professionals, insurance brokers, and underwriters for securing previously unavailable and much needed cyber coverage and at the same time developing a program that will drive improvement and best practices into the future. Grace was chosen in 2011 as one of Business Insurance's Women to Watch, an annual feature spotlighting 25 women who are doing outstanding work in commercial insurance, reinsurance, risk management, employee benefits and related fields, such as law and consulting. Grace was also selected by Business Insurance magazine for their 2011 Risk Management Honor Roll. Also in 2011, UC was recognized as being one of the top five organizations for ERM in APQC's benchmarking study. In June 2012, Treasury and Risk magazine named Grace as one of the "100 Most Influential People in Finance." Grace has consulted with numerous public and private entities on the implementation of ERM, including Harvard University and SingHealth, Singapore's largest health care group. She is a member of a variety of National Committees and Boards, including the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) ERM Committee, Kuali Ready Board, CISO Governing Board, and Bay Area Cross-Sector Partners in Preparedness (BACSPP) Board.

DWAINE DUCKETT As Vice President, Mr. Duckett is responsible for Systemwide Human Resources and programs. This includes Strategic Planning, Employee/Labor Relations, Talent Management, Senior Management Recruitment, Compensation, Performance Management and the University's Human Resources policies ensuring compliance. He also serves as the primary fiduciary, as delegated by the Board of Regents and the President, to oversee all aspects of benefit plans and program administration for the University of California Retirement Plan (UCRP).

Mr. Duckett's primary experience has been in leading and transforming various human resources functions within large multi-billion dollar corporations. In his most recent assignment before joining UC, he served as Vice President of Human Resources for Heinz North America, the largest division of the H. J. Heinz Company. He has held several high level and top human resources positions for organizations such as AT&T Wireless; Automatic Data Processing Incorporated (ADP); the Pepsi-Cola Company; Covisent LLC; Phillip Morris and Sony.

His primary focus at UC is to build the human resources organization to add strategic value. He is also charged with leading efforts to continuously improve the function and services it provides. The University has 180,000 faculty and staff across its ten campuses, five medical centers and three national laboratories.

Mr. Duckett earned his BA from Brandeis University and his MS from Carnegie Mellon University.

STEPHEN D. FRANKLIN is Director for Academic Outreach in UC Irvine's Office of Information Technology and was for many years a Lecturer in Irvine's Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science. A career-long UCI employee, he has served in many different capacities: teaching, research and research support, developing software and managing various groups. He serves on various systemwide coordinating groups and is UC Irvine's "Designated Agent" for handling copyright infringement allegations under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College and received his doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Chicago.

JOHN GREGG works as both the UC Davis Director of Controls & Accountability and the Systemwide Director of Enterprise Risk Management. On October 1, 2009, John joined the systemwide Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Team at UC Risk Services. He brought to his new role 24 years of experience at UC Davis and is a resource to assist all UC locations with their ERM programs. John also continues in his role as Director of Controls & Accountability at UC Davis, which he assumed in 1997 after eleven years with the UC Davis Internal Audit Office. John started with the university in 1986 as Principal EDP Auditor and became Director of Internal Audit in 1992. John has a B.A. in Management and a Minor in Astronomy from Sonoma State University. He has a Certification in Control Self Assessment and is a Certified Information Systems Auditor, Certified Data Processor, and Certified Systems Professional. Prior to joining UC Davis, John was with the US Army Audit Agency, which gave him the opportunity to travel extensively and develop risk assessment tools on a global scale. John has presented continuing education seminars sponsored by UC Davis, UC Office of the President, and several professional associations.

LYNDA HILLIARD, MBA, CHC, CCEP is the UC System-wide Deputy Compliance Officer & UCOP Ethics and Compliance Officer. Lynda currently reports to the UC Chief Compliance and Audit Officer and assists the SVP/CCAO in the oversight and direction of regulatory compliance-related functions at UC. Lynda was appointed the UC Office of the President Ethics and Compliance Officer and works with the EVP of Business Operations in chairing the OP Ethics and Compliance Risk Committee. Ms. Hilliard has over 25 years of health care clinical and operations management experience and has spent the past 15 years in either organizational or consulting corporate compliance. Lynda received her nursing diploma from HPH School of Nursing, BA from CSU-Chico in Community Services/Healthcare Administration and her MBA from Loyola University. Lynda has co-authored several healthcare operations texts and is a nationally known speaker on healthcare regulatory compliance. Lynda holds a CHC (Certified in Healthcare Compliance from HCCA) and CCEP (Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional) from the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE).

PATRICK LENZ As Vice President of Budget and Capital Resources, Lenz will have responsibility for developing, approving, communicating and implementing the university's operating and capital resources acquisitions, allocation and long-range budget plans. Patrick's areas of responsibility include the campus state operations budget allocations, state and non-state funded capital facility projects, real estate leases, sustainability, and energy contracts. He advocates before the Governor's Office and the state Legislature for state General Fund dollars and capital construction funding.

Lenz has held senior budget positions in all three segments of California public higher education, most recently as assistant vice chancellor for budget for the California State University (CSU) system. Previously he held various positions with the California Community Colleges, including as the system's executive vice chancellor.

Patrick is a familiar and respected colleague to many of us after his years both at the California State University and the California Community Colleges. He is well-versed in Californian public higher education funding issues, and therefore is uniquely qualified to help us meet the budget challenges we face during what once again is shaping up to be an extraordinarily difficult fiscal situation in Sacramento.

Lenz joined the UC after six years at CSU, where he was responsible for coordinating the System Budget Advisory Committee, which develops CSU budget requests, and for reviewing and approving all CSU campus funding allocations. He was also responsible for providing budget and fiscal policy briefings to members of the Executive Council of CSU Presidents and for advocating and testifying on behalf of the CSU in Sacramento.

Prior to joining CSU, Lenz served in a variety of roles at the 109-campus California Community Colleges system. He rose from vice chancellor for fiscal policy to executive vice chancellor. Previously he served in a variety of fiscal roles for the California State Senate, including as deputy director for the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee.

KIRK LEW is Assistant Vice Chancellor – Financial Affairs and Controller at UC Santa Cruz where he oversees the accounting, procurement, student business, and enterprise financial systems management functions, in addition to managing the campus financial controls and accountability program. He has been at UCSC since 1996. Prior to serving in this position, Kirk served as Director of Financial Services at Dominican University of San Rafael and as General Accounting Manager at UC Berkeley. Prior to his higher education career, Kirk served as a controller in private industry and as an auditor with KMG/Main Hurdman. Kirk is a CPA and received his B.S. in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.

JOHN A. LOHSE is the Director of Investigations in the Office of the Senior Vice President/Chief Compliance and Audit Officer. He is responsible for coordinating, tracking, managing and conducting investigations at the Office of the President and system-wide. He came to UC in January 2004 after a career with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), where he served as a Special Agent, Associate Division Counsel and Chief Division Counsel for the FBI's San Francisco Division. He has also served as a criminal prosecutor with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in Phoenix, Arizona. John is a member of the State Bars of California and Arizona.

GWENDOLYN MOSLEY is the Director Staff Development and Diversity for the University of California system. She is located in the Talent Management and Staff Development unit where she has accountability for systemwide Staff Training and Development programs and processes, including Management and Leadership Development. Another primary area of accountability is supporting programs and promoting a best practices network for Staff Diversity. Gwendolyn began her UC career at UC Berkeley as Assistant Director for Residence Life. She has served as Manager of Training and Development for UCOP, Associate Director of Training and Organizational Effectiveness for UC systemwide, and Senior Organizational Development and Learning Partner at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Gwendolyn holds a B.A. in Psychology from Northwestern University and a Masters Degree in Human Resources and Organizational Development from the University of San Francisco.

ZOANNE NELSON is the P200 Program Director for UCOP Procurement Services, and is responsible for leading a systemwide program to generate $200 million in savings annually through the procurement function. Prior to joining UCOP last April, Zoanne was the UCSF Associate Director of the Program Management Office (PMO). At UCSF, Zoanne worked closely with the Executive Director to establish the PMO in 2003, and then led the implementation of six PeopleSoft finance modules, the Effort Reporting System, the HBS Timekeeping System, and a number of other finance, procurement, and HR initiatives. Prior to joining UCSF, Zoanne was a Sr. Manager with Price Waterhouse in Washington DC, where she led various projects for federal government agencies such as US Agency for International Development and Housing and Urban Development. She has an MBA in International Development from American University.

CATHY ÓSULLIVAN is Director of UC's Working Smarter Initiative. In this new role, she is responsible for the management and coordination of the Working Smarter portfolio of initiatives and programs. She is developing short term and longer term operational strategies to further the success of the current group of projects, encourage new projects from across the UC system, and refine the metrics against which projects and proposals are assessed.

Cathy has been at UC for 9 years. Most recently, she served with the Procurement Services Group at UCOP, leading system-wide sourcing initiatives. In that role she worked directly with all UC locations to find opportunities to move toward common standards in which could then be negotiated into shared and greatly improved UC-wide contracts and pricing. Prior to UC, Cathy was at Intel Corporation in various roles, both in their global IT division and later for several years at Intel Capital, where she worked directly with start-up companies in which Intel had made strategic venture investments. She is a double-degree holder from UC, with a Bachelors Degree from UC San Diego and an MBA from UC Davis.

WANDA LYNN RILEY is a seasoned professional with expertise in higher education administration, financial management and internal auditing, gained through over twenty-two years of experience in public accounting and college and university administration. She has first-hand experience in higher education from account analyses to general ledger overhaul; financial statement auditing and compilation, internal financial, operational, compliance, performance, and investigative audits; policy evaluations and proposals; and risk management. Wanda Lynn started her career as an auditor with Deloitte & Touche LLP, served as associate controller at Tuskegee University, director of Risk Management and Audit Services at Boise State University, director of Audit and Advisory Services at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is currently chief audit executive and director of Audit and Advisory Services at the University of California, Berkeley. She has also been a presenter for the Western Association of College and University Business Officer and on the faculty for WACUBO's Business Management Institute.

DONNA SALVO has recently been appointed as Executive Director, Talent Management and Staff Development. Donna started her time at UC in 2010 as a consultant in the OP, Human Resources group. She is responsible for the initiatives related to Systemwide talent acquisition programs along with coordination of Systemwide management and leadership development efforts. Her focus is to look at ways to integrate and leverage best practices in Talent Management across the University. A few of the recent programs she has been involved with include the creation of the UC Systemwide Job Board and deploying LinkedIn tools to help employment managers and recruiters in utilizing social media to attract talent into the University. She has also helped to launch the new UC Management Development Program and designed a new hire on boarding process at the Office of the President.

Prior to joining UCOP, she held the position of Vice President of H.R. Operations for the American Automobile Association. She has held several high level and top human resources positions over her 20+ years of experience for organizations such as Wells Fargo Bank, Citigroup, Palm Inc, Hexcel, ADP, TransAmerica and Colgate-Palmolive.

DAN SAMPSON is the Assistant Vice President, Financial Control and Accountability at the Office of the President. His expanded role includes the leadership and operation of all the University's Treasury functions. Dan works with a system-wide group of Controllers to strengthen systems of internal control and business practices at each location. In addition, Dan is responsible for internal control systems for centralized University operations that are located at the Office of the President, including all banking and banking-related services. Dan joined the University of California in 1997 after ten years as a Vice President and Senior Manager in audit and controllership capacities in the financial services industry. Dan is a CIA and received his MBA degree in finance and accounting magna cum laude from the University of the Pacific.

JOHN D. STOBO, MD is senior vice president for health sciences and services for University of California. He is responsible for systemwide coordination and communication among UC's sixteen health sciences schools and five medical centers (collectively referred to as UC Health); He coordinates policy development and develops mechanisms for monitoring quality and performance. He also oversees strategic planning and advocacy efforts as well as the development of systemwide initiatives for UC Health.

Stobo has more than forty years of leadership experience in the clinical and academic health science fields. He served as president at the University of Texas Medical (UTMB) branch from 1997 to 2007; was the William Osler Professor of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital; from 1985-1997 served as head of the Section of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at UCSF 1976 to 1985, where he was also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His national leadership positions include president of the American Association of Professors of Medicine, president of the American College of Rheumatology, chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, where he was also a member of the IOM Council. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the California Healthcare Institute (CHI). In 1996, Stobo received a mastership from the American College of Physicians for his distinguished contributions to internal medicine. Stobo earned his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. and his M.D. from the State University of New York in Buffalo, N.Y.

PETER J. TAYLOR is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the University of California system. He joined the University in April 2009. As CFO, he oversees a myriad of financial matters for the University, including accounting, external finance, banking and cash management, strategic sourcing and risk management.

Prior to joining the UC system, Mr. Taylor was a Managing Director at Barclays Capital, based in the Los Angeles office. He joined Barclays in September 2008, after a long career at Lehman Brothers. Based in the Firm's Fixed Income Division, Mr. Taylor worked with several State and local governments, as well as electric and natural gas utilities, in California, Arizona and Nevada, and structured floating rate, commercial paper, fixed rate, derivative and asset-backed transactions.

Active in the community, Mr. Taylor has served on various boards and commissions. In 2004, he was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Performance Review Commission, which was charged with reviewing and recommending ways to reform the framework of State government. He was also appointed by Governor Gray Davis to the California Student Aid Commission, where he served from 2000 until 2002.

From 2002 – 2004, Mr. Taylor served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the UCLA Foundation, the primary volunteer fundraising organization for the campus. He previously was President of the UCLA Alumni Association (1996-1998), and also served as an alumni representative on the University of California Board of Regents from 1998 until 2000.

Additionally, since December 2005, he has been a member of the J. Paul Getty Trust and since December 2000 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the James Irvine Foundation, where he serves as Vice Chair.

Prior to his career in investment banking, Mr. Taylor worked as a manager with GTE in the company's Thousand Oaks office, and as Executive Director of the Coro Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles. Before receiving his graduate degree, he worked for six years on the staff of the California State Assembly.

Mr. Taylor received his undergraduate degree from UCLA. He completed a one-year graduate level fellowship with the Coro Foundation, training out of the Foundation's Los Angeles Center. He obtained his Master's Degree in Public Policy Analysis from Claremont Graduate University.

TAM TRAN has been in the field of research administration since 2002. Tam is the Assistant Director in the UC Irvine Sponsored Projects office since 2008 and is responsible for pre-award and post-award functions; recruitment and training, supervision of the contract and grant teams; and working on areas of compliance and policy. Tam has experience in negotiating research contracts from federal agencies, nonprofit/foundations, and industry including clinical trials. Prior to joining the Sponsored Projects office, Tam held a departmental position UCI and was mainly responsible for pre-award functions.

Tam received both her Bachelor's degree in Biology and Master's degree in Public Health with a focus in health services administration from the UC Los Angeles. She is a member of the National Council of University Research Administration (NCURA).