Koya | Diversified Search Group partnered with The University of Tennessee System on its Chief Information Officer search.

The University of Tennessee (UT) is a statewide system of higher education with campuses in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Martin, and Memphis; the UT Space Institute in Tullahoma; the UT Institute of Agriculture with a presence in every Tennessee county; and the statewide Institute for Public Service. The UT system manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory through its UT-Battelle partnership; enrolls about 50,000 students statewide; produces about 10,000 new graduates every year; and represents more than 400,000 alumni around the world.

Our work with UT resulted in the placement of Ramon Padilla.

As Chief Information Officer, Padilla leads the UT System’s information systems, including assisting in the launch of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that will serve as the backbone of the finance and human resource operations. He also provides leadership with strategic thinking, guidance, and general information in all areas of information technology (IT) and security activities.

Padilla comes to UT from Minnesota State Colleges and Universities where he served as the Vice-Chancellor and Chief Information Officer. He oversaw the development and innovation of system-wide IT infrastructure, enterprise data applications, information security, data, and analytics. In five years, the division more than doubled service offers while reducing technology expenses by 7 percent. He also established a managed administrative computing (MAC) shared service where campuses can outsource their IT management to the system office for a fee. He also identified the need for, and championed the replacement of, the system’s ERP, by persuading the chancellor, 37 college and university presidents, the board of trustees, and the legislature to invest $150 million in the replacement project.

He previously contracted through Six Dimensions as an independent technology consultant, during which he worked with a chief information officer of a top 10 research university to perform reviews as well as offer policy and program advice.

As Associate Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Chief Information Officer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he developed an incident response policy and procedures that provided metrics and determined the severity and impact of information technology events. He also redefined the web services operation to reduce costs for the division, transforming it into a quasi-auxiliary operation that saved the university $85,000 annually.

Other positions he has held include, Assistant Vice-Chancellor and Chief Information Officer for the State University System of Florida Board of Governors; Senior Project Manager at Kyra Infotech; Senior Project Manager at Keane; and Director/Administrator of Information Services with Jefferson County Government/Louisville Metro Government in Louisville, Kentucky.

Padilla earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Kentucky, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Louisville.

We invite you to read the announcement: UT System Selects Ramon Padilla as Chief Information Officer.