Michael Hager serves as senior vice president for finance and operations at the University of Northern Iowa. He brought 20 years of student affairs experience to the CBO role, making the transition to the business office as a bridge between the student experience and operations. Surprises? Not many, says Hager. "I was a little more surprised the approach was focused on operations and not students … the student experience I brought from that role helped us in this division."

At Northern Iowa, Hager has been building his bench strength of future CBO leadership since day one on the job. While he says the media has beaten up higher education, new team members coming into his organization are energetic, collaborative, and excited to bring positive change to the institution. "I'm not seeing the same kind of beat down mentality from the new people coming in… it's exciting to see them looking at things a little bit differently."

Join us to hear how Hager learned the ropes of the business office and create an organization that is diverse and energized for change.