Fall 2014 issue of Horizons

COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

The Next Generation of Business Officers by Brent Stevens, CPA

S uccession planning in the finance, accounting, and/or business office department (collectively, the business function) at a university is a critical issue that most institutions of higher education are currently facing. Many universities have been extremely fortunate to retain a tremendous amount of knowledge, expertise and institutional “know how” for the last 20 to 30 years with very little turnover. Unfortunately, a large wave of retirements is quickly approaching the business function in higher education. A recent study by TIAA-CREF and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) provided some alarming results to the industry.

Over 60% of the respondents indicated that their chief business officer intends to leave his/her position in the next 5 years. More importantly, 97% of these institutions indicated that a succession plan was not in place to address this issue. At many institutions, this wave of forthcoming retirements spans to multiple levels below the chief business officer (e.g. the controller, business office manager, financial reporting manager, etc.). Despite this startling trend, most institutions of higher education are uniquely situated to address the issue of succession planning effectively compared to organizations of similar size in different industries.

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