Project Café Leadership Transition

Per the memorandum distributed last week via bulk email by Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Gene Sunshine and Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, Information Technology Mort Rahimi, Project Café Director Jeff Mundt will be stepping down at the end of September to pursue external opportunities.

Jason Schober, currently Project Café's Functional Manager, will assume the role of Director. He will be working closely with members of the project team and the University community to develop a transition plan to ensure continued progress on the project.

If you have any questions regarding the transition or would like to offer suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us at projectcafe@northwestern.edu and we will be happy to provide additional information and welcome your feedback.

The text of the bulk email announcement follows.

 

To: Members of the University Community

From: Mort Rahimi, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, Information Technology
Gene Sunshine, Senior Vice President for Business and Finance

It is with regret that we announce that Jeff Mundt will be leaving his position as Director of Project Café to pursue other professional opportunities effective September 28, 2007. Since arriving at Northwestern in October 2004, Jeff has done outstanding work in leading this project. He developed and implemented the project structure and approach, developed an advisory structure that engaged leaders in both central units and the schools, led the development and approval of the project’s scope and timetable, actively engaged over 400 members of the University community in the requirements gathering and design phases of the project, and perhaps most importantly, built an exceptional project team that is committed to the successful implementation of the new financial system and its attendant interfaces.

Jeff has served as a strong and energetic leader for the project over the past three years and we will miss his wit, wisdom, and leadership. We wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors.

While there are always challenges associated with any leadership transition, we will continue to move the project forward on its current timetable with no interruption. As noted above, the Project Café team is staffed by many outstanding individuals of exceptional talent. Excellent staff at all levels in our schools and the Office of the Controller, the Office for Research, the Budget Office, NUIT, and other offices within the University community are also contributing significantly to the project. Following consultation with users and project staff, the following changes in the Project Café leadership team will take place effective September 29th:

- Jason Schober, currently the functional manager for Project Café, will become Project Director.

- David Kolodziejski, currently the interim technical manager for the project, will become interim functional manager.

- Moses Phenany, currently a senior developer on the project, will become technical manager for the project.

- Other members of the project team will likely be asked to expand their current roles to support Jason in the work required to implement the new system.

We have every confidence that this reconfigured leadership team will achieve the current goals for implementation of the new system by September 2008. This confidence is based both on the competencies of the team and the high level of support and effort that will be provided by many of those in the University over the next year. As always, the project team will continue to work collaboratively with those across the University to implement this new system. We continue to look forward to both addressing the challenges of implementing a new enterprise system with you – and to celebrating with you when this system is in production.