Senior Vice Provost - Online Initiatives

The Senior Vice Provost, Online Education, leads the University of Arizona’s enterprise online strategy, aligning technology, operations, and academic support to drive growth and innovation. The position oversees the integration of Arizona Online (AZO) and the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC) into a unified shared services model, ensuring operational and academic excellence, financial sustainability, and compliance.

The Senior Vice Provost leads a matrixed organization that thrives on close coordination with key university units, including Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, and Legal. The role focuses on delivering a high-quality, student-centered experience by integrating enrollment, advising, financial aid, and support services into a seamless, data-driven ecosystem. Serving as a key advisor for online education to the president and the university’s senior leadership, this position ensures strong governance, accreditation compliance, and risk management while advancing the university’s mission and expanding its impact in the digital education landscape.

• Leads the alignment of talent, roles, and organizational capabilities across Arizona Online and UAGC within a unified shared services model, ensuring operational continuity, employee engagement, and a cohesive culture that supports the university’s online education strategy.
• Ensures that marketing, enrollment, and technology function as a continuous loop driving institutional success. This executive will drive standard operating procedures across university colleges to ensure coordination and discipline regarding course design, student support, and enrollment pipelines.
• Demonstrates financial acumen by leveraging financial reports, budgets, and performance metrics to support sound decision-making, long-term sustainability, and fiscal transparency.
• Ensures academic programs and delivery tracks are designed explicitly for student persistence and graduation.
• Unifies non-academic support services across the enterprise to provide a seamless, high-touch experience from first inquiry to alumni status. This requires standardizing financial aid, enrollment, and advising workflows into a single, cohesive, data-driven pipeline.
• Maintains high standards to ensure that every degree delivered online reflects the rigor and reputation of the university.
• Exercises the decisiveness to update legacy processes as needed and navigate institutional dynamics that may lead to fragmentation.
• Leads large-scale organizational transformation while successfully navigating the human side of complex institutional change.
• Utilizes emotional intelligence to merge distinct institutional cultures and successfully tie the online enterprise to the broader flagship campus.
• Moves the organization past the current manual processes in Arizona Online and the legacy technology at UAGC.
• Recognizes information technology as a fundamental, strategic driver of the enterprise rather than a background utility. In collaboration with the Chief Information Officer and University Information Technology Services, will act as a sophisticated manager of enterprise systems, steering a multi-year technology migration to fully merge technology across the U of A and UAGC.
• Moves the enterprise toward automated excellence by holding teams accountable for scalable, integrated systems while preserving operational continuity during transitional phases.
• Communicates persuasively with diverse stakeholders, ensuring all parties feel invested in online transformation.
• Serves as a dedicated partner to the President, Provost, and CFO. This leader prioritizes overall institutional success over departmental wins and acts as a cohesive, collaborative executive.
• Serves as the designated leader for Online Initiatives in WSCUC accreditation reporting, requiring deep familiarity with regional accreditation standards and compliance pathways.
• Stays abreast of the complex and dynamic federal and state regulations, consumer protection mandates, and compliance requirements specific to online education.
• Proactively identifies and mitigates risks associated with large-scale digital operations, intellectual property protection, data privacy, and external partnerships.

Qualifications:

• Comprehensive understanding of the online adult learner lifecycle, digital marketing analytics, automated enterprise infrastructure, enrollment management, federal regulatory compliance, and regional accreditation.
• Skilled in change management.
• Ability to unify disparate institutional cultures and units into a single organization focused on operational scale.
• Exceptional communication, collaboration, and organizational skills.
• Leadership in cross-functional, collaborative environments.
• Master’s degree with experience in educational leadership, organizational psychology, adult learning, online technology, and/or related fields.
• Minimum of five years of executive leadership experience in a large-scale online educational enterprise or digital service organization, with a significant record of accomplishments including experience leading complex, large-scale online transformation.
• Proven experience of P&L responsibility of at least $10 million or experience leading the integration of distinct units.
• Terminal degree.
• Experience in a large, complex public university setting.