Campus & community, People, Milestones, Campus news

Leader named for new Office of Strategic Initiatives

By Public Affairs

nevels750

UC Berkeley Vice Provost Andrew Szeri sent this message to the campus community on Thursday:

Last week, Chancellor Dirks announced the formation of the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI), which will support the design and implementation of strategic campus initiatives as part of the university’s comprehensive planning and analysis process. In follow-up, I am pleased to announce the appointment of Lyle Nevels as the executive director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives.

Lyle Nevels

Lyle Nevels (UC Berkeley photo by Carole Love)

Lyle will report directly to me and oversee a small number of existing campus specialists who will work in the OSI program office. Under Lyle’s leadership, the OSI will be responsible for providing analytical support and coordinating the work of the teams and leaders of the campuswide strategic initiatives currently under development. Additional information about this new campus office and Berkeley’s strategic framework is available at osi.berkeley.edu.

Lyle was selected by a search committee, which consisted of representatives from the chancellor’s office, the executive vice chancellor and provost’s office, administration and finance and faculty based on his extensive experience leading and implementing cross-functional initiatives and transformational change.

He most recently served as the assistant vice chancellor – IT and deputy chief information officer. Before that, Lyle was the Haas School of Business’ first chief information officer and later worked as interim associate vice chancellor – IT and chief information officer. Throughout his time at Berkeley, Lyle has created and managed diverse teams to develop the processes, tools and collaborative approaches needed to solve complex challenges.  For example, he provided executive leadership on the successful rollout of bConnected, Berkeley’s Google apps suite of email, calendar and file-sharing services; worked with the Haas School of Business to develop their strategic plan and balanced scorecard; and co-sponsored the contracts and grants initiative, which improved Berkeley’s ability to track the unique requirements of sponsored awards.  Lyle’s strong analytical skills combined with his background in process innovation and system design and his deep knowledge of the campus make him uniquely positioned to assume this important leadership role.

Please join me in congratulating Lyle on his new position. We look forward to on-going campus collaboration as we develop a plan to preserve and expand Berkeley’s academic excellence while strengthening our financial foundation.

Sincerely,

Andrew Szeri

Vice Provost, Strategic Academic and Facilities Planning