Dartmouth has adjusted its financial administration structure to better suit College President Phil Hanlon’s academic agenda, appointing Michael Wagner chief financial officer. Wagner will fill this role and continue as vice president for finance, reporting to executive vice president and former CFO Richard Mills.
Considering Dartmouth’s $1 billion operating budget for 2014-15, Provost Carolyn Dever’s arrival and Hanlon’s vision, College leaders decided to separate chief financial officer responsibilities from the operating role of executive vice president, Mills said.
Wagner said the change will allow Mills to focus on special initiatives while he focuses on financial challenges and opportunities.
“Then as a team we can help folks make decisions,” he said.
Chief investment officer Pamela Peedin, whose office works with the finance team to understand Dartmouth’s financial risk profile and implications for investment strategy, wrote in an email that dividing responsibilities to give each position a more specific focus makes sense because of the demands of each role.
The CFO plans and executes Dartmouth’s financial planning, budgeting, treasury, reporting and operations activities while collaborating with academic and administrative leaders involved in financial planning, organization and policy matters, namely the president, provost and Board of Trustees.
Currently, the College’s financial leadership team is working on planning the fiscal year 2015 budget, Wagner said.
He said he also aims to communicate with the community about Dartmouth’s financial constraints and opportunities to meet student, faculty and alumni needs.
The financial administrative team is focusing on simplifying their processes as well as making their business operations more efficient, he said.
“That includes creating new technology tools, simplifying our policy, improving our processes, so we’re constantly looking for opportunities to do those things,” Wagner said.
New technology includes electronic time management, tools for financial modeling and budgeting, imaging of endowment documents, electronic business expense reimbursement and electronic workflow for certain forms, among others, Wagner elaborated in an email.
At Dartmouth since 2001, Wagner served as the College’s comptroller and CFO of the Geisel School of Medicine before being appointed vice president for finance in 2010. He served as interim CFO of the College after former executive vice president and CFO Steven Kadish left Dartmouth for Northeastern University in 2012.
“I personally think that I grew a lot through those experiences and that adding that with the combined skills that we have within our team will work really well,” he said.
As CFO, his responsibilities in working with senior administrators like Hanlon and Dever will expand, Wagner said.
The roles of CFO and vice president for finance are combined at many Ivy League schools — including Harvard University, Princeton University and Cornell University.
