Description
Tufts University seeks an accomplished, collaborative, and forwardthinking technology executive to serve in the newly created role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This is an exceptional opportunity to join a missiondriven, studentcentered research university with a longstanding commitment to social impact, civic engagement, and innovation. The CTO will be a strategic and influential leader who helps shape and advance the University’s enterprise technical foundations, ensuring that technology enables excellence in teaching, research, clinical practice, operations, and the student experience. Serving at a pivotal moment of institutional and technological evolution, the CTO will play a central role in positioning Tufts for longterm success in a rapidly changing digital landscape.
Reporting to the Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, the CTO is responsible for defining and leading Tufts University’s enterprise technical strategy. The CTO provides strategic oversight of core infrastructure and platforms, including cloud services, networking, storage, data and integration environments, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. This role sets longterm technical direction through enterprise architecture principles, standards, and roadmaps, ensuring that technology investments are secure, resilient, scalable, and aligned with institutional priorities and industryleading practices. With a broad awareness of higher education and technology trends, the CTO ensures that Tufts’ technical environment remains futureready and capable of supporting evolving academic, administrative, clinical, and research needs.
Requirements
As a key member of the Tufts Technology Services (TTS) senior leadership team, the CTO partners closely with the CIO, directorate leaders, and campus stakeholders to drive integrated planning, effective execution, and continuous improvement across the technology portfolio. The CTO leads crossdirectorate initiatives, chairs and supports enterprise architecture communities of practice, and advances shared standards, governance, and performance metrics. The role emphasizes strong stewardship of financial and human resources, development of multi-year service roadmaps, and delivery of technology services that demonstrate measurable value. By balancing strategic vision with operational excellence, the CTO fosters a culture of collaboration, accountability, and innovation across TTS.
The successful candidate will be a seasoned technology leader with substantial experience designing and managing enterprisescale technical services in complex, matrixed organizations, preferably within higher education or researchintensive environments. They will bring deep technical breadth across infrastructure, cloud, data, and emerging technologies; demonstrated success leading multidisciplinary teams; and a proven ability to translate strategy into execution. An exceptional communicator and trusted advisor, the next CTO will possess strong consensusbuilding skills and an instinct for partnership, enabling them to influence across technical and nontechnical audiences. Above all, the CTO will bring a deep appreciation for the power of technology to advance Tufts University’s mission and strengthen its impact locally and globally.
Tufts University has retained the national executive search firm Isaacson, Miller to assist in this search. All inquiries, nominations, and applications should be sent in confidence below.
Rebecca Kennedy is leading this search with Kristen Andersen and Cortnee Bollard.
