Posting Details (Default Section)
Posting Number:20254388SPosition Title:Assistant Vice President, Customer Experience & IT SupportPosition Type:StaffLocation:Villanova, PARecruitment Type:Internal/External ApplicantsWork Schedule:full-time/12-monthsAvg Hours WeekDepartment:711-UNIT - Senior Management TeamPosition Summary:
Why work at Villanova?
- Join a mission-driven organization. Since Villanova University’s founding in 1842, we have been inspired by the values of truth, unity, and love, and are a community dedicated to service to others.
- We believe that an inclusive community fosters an understanding and appreciation for diversity among our students, faculty, staff and administrators.
- Villanova’s most precious asset is our people. As an employee, you will receive a holistic benefits package, generous paid time off, a competitive retirement savings plan, flexible work options, wellness programs including gym membership, professional development, tuition assistance, and more.
Reporting to the CIO the AVP for Customer Experience & Support provides strategic and operational leadership for multiple teams providing customer-centered support services for Villanova’s campus community. This position is responsible for the leadership and mentorship of personnel in the campus Service Desk, endpoint engineering and lifecycle support, distributed customer support (at present, Law School and College of Engineering), and customer outreach/success teams. This role will be a strategic and tactical collaborator, both internal and external to the central Information Technology team, helping provide proactive engagement opportunities, empathy-led support, and transparent communications. The AVP will be expected to foster strong partnerships within campus, with key vendors, and across higher education institutions. They will lead efforts across Villanova’s IT community to implement IT Service Management principles and tools and seek ways to improve the IT experience of students, faculty and staff.
Villanova is a Catholic university sponsored by the Augustinian Order. The University is an equal opportunity employer and seeks candidates who understand, respect and can contribute to the University’s mission and values.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Strategic Leadership
- Ensure high-quality customer engagement across walk-up, web, chat, email, text, and telephony support mechanisms that values empathy and positive experiences.
- Instill user centered design principles and methods in the creation and continual improvement of IT services.
- Dedicate time researching and developing new, innovative technologies for next-generation services for campus.
- Explore options for addressing current issues or service gaps by reaching out to other universities, discussing methods, technologies, and processes they have used to knowledge-share and collaborate on solutions. Maintain a knowledge base for reference.
- Lead the evaluation of endpoint and service management technologies that meet short and long-term goals, and develop business cases, return on investment (ROI) assessments, total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations, and other analyses to help guide their selection
- Develop and maintain frameworks to guide innovation and improvement cycles, with a focus on proactive solutions and process improvements that will enhance customer experience.
- Assist IT leadership in the development and adoption of forward-leaning IT guidelines, standards, procedures, and policies.
- Lead planning activities for establishing future directions for systems based on support metrics, customer experience, and their contribution to the mission of Villanova.
Operational Excellence
- Work with clients and units both inside and outside central IT to assure satisfactory delivery of services in an efficient manner.
- Provide technical support and consulting to colleagues both internal and external to IT to ensure systems and services are more secure, sustainable, and scalable.
- Lead the development and implementation of strong operational processes for change management, incident management and problem management.
- Lead responses to major incidents and problems drawing on the expertise of all members of the IT community and Villanova’s vendor partners.
- Contribute to efforts surrounding the development and ongoing maintenance of Communication Strategies and Support Protocols for Villanova University’s information technology systems.
- Provide transparency into the status, health, utilization, and performance of enterprise services through use of monitoring and outreach tools.
- Maintain a complex portfolio of operational projects surrounding enterprise endpoint lifecycle management and service delivery lifecycle, involving prioritization of operational work and resource allocation, proactive involvement of IT teams impacted by work, and scheduling communications on maintenance and upgrades.
- Collaborate with leadership and peers to develop project plans, including work breakdowns, timelines, milestones, resources needed, and cost of service analyses.
- Coordinate with Project Management Office to create project teams, assign responsibilities, track progress and resource constraints, update documentation and reporting, and communicate project status to supervisors.
Organizational Leadership
- Facilitate the implementation of Villanova’s Augustinian values and IT’s RESTLESS vision and values
- Foster high-performing and agile teams dedicated to technical excellence and exceptional customer service, and fluid customer experiences
- Embrace effective communication within the team, across IT and across the university.
- Build, support, and expand a culture where employees from all backgrounds can succeed and thrive.
- Train, coach, and mentor employees under their supervision. Plan and conduct performance appraisals of employees under their supervision. Participate in or lead hiring processes, as needed.
- Lead teams responsible for enterprise customer support (on-premises and remote); including setting priorities, resolving conflicts, performance evaluations, and performance coaching.
- Lead IT’s outreach and customer relations efforts, working proactively across the organization to assure that customer needs are met.
- Cultivate and maintain strong partnerships with key internal and external campus colleagues. Engage proactively to build strong relationships with strategic vendors.
- Facilitate knowledge transfer among all IT professionals at Villanova.
- Perform other duties and assist with projects as assigned.
Minimum Qualifications:
Formal Education
Work Experience
- 10 years’ work experience in a customer service/support role
- 7 years’ hands-on, progressively responsible leadership of cross functional teams
- 5 years’ work experience in the IT field (regardless of sector)
Work Skills (e.g., written and verbal communication skills)
- Possess a growth mindset with an eagerness to learn
- Curious by nature, with a willingness to ask difficult questions
- Ability to apply empathy-based communications and actions to support customers
- Ability to translate needs/issues with both functional and technical audiences
- Ability to foster a team culture with a continual growth mindset
- Passion for customer service and generating positive experiences
- Talent for identifying opportunities for improvements and advocating for change
- Talent for building effective relationships and working in a team
- Excellent time management and planning skills
- Ability to document the work of oneself and others
- Strong analytical skills in identifying trends and making business/technical decisions
- Possess IT Leadership skills necessary to lead a successful IT organization:
- IT Governance, Partner Management, Metrics and Reporting, Service Management, and Operational Planning and Management
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Specific Job Knowledge (e.g., knowledge of principles and procedures related to field and area)
- Experience leading an enterprise Service Desk
- Experience running ITSM tools (Specifically Incident/Problem, Change, Asset Management)
- Experience creating and leading a recurring enterprise hardware refresh lifecycle project
- Experience developing and managing budgets (capital and project-based)
- Experience leading, mentoring, and investing in the development of diverse teams
Preferred Qualifications:
Formal Education
- Master’s degree
- Certifications in IT Service Delivery, Project Management, or Business Process Analysis
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Work Experience
- 5 years’ experience working in customer support role (regardless of sector)
- 3 years’ experience working in a higher education setting
- 3 years’ experience with Project Management and/or Business Process Analysis
Work Skills (e.g., written and verbal communication skills)
- Ability to articulate business cases and execute action plans, with a commitment to quality
- Strong vendor management skills
- Possess IT Leadership skills necessary to lead a successful IT organization:
- Strategic Planning, Organizational Effectiveness, Compliance Management, and Portfolio Management
Specific Job Knowledge (e.g., knowledge of principles and procedures related to field and area)
- Experience using data analysis and reporting tools to generate dashboards
- Experience in developing or leading IT governance structures in an academic environment
- Strong familiarity with information security guidelines, principles, and requirements
- Experience running enterprise systems and applications at scale is desirable
Physical Requirements and/or Unusual Work Hours: Special Message to Applicants:
Please Note: To be considered for this role, candidates must live within a commutable distance to Villanova University in Villanova, PA.
Posting Date:06/11/2025Closing Date (11:59pm ET):06/18/2025Salary Posting Information:
Commensurate with experience.
Salary Band:21Job Classification:exempt
