Appointment of Vice-President (Strategy and Major Projects) and Vice-Chancellor’s Chief of Staff
Monash University has announced the appointment of Ms Teresa Finlayson to the newly created position of Vice-President (Strategy and Major Projects) and Vice-Chancellor’s Chief of Staff, following internal and external advertisement of the role.
In this new role, which will be a part of the Vice-Chancellor’s Group and the Vice-Chancellor’s Executive Committee (VCEC), Ms Finlayson will be responsible for providing executive oversight for major projects of importance to the Monash Group, and overall management and coordination of several functions within the portfolio of the Vice-Chancellor.
Ms Finlayson is well-known to the Monash community, having completed 13 years of exceptional service to the University before commencing a new role as Chief Operating Officer at RMIT University, a position she has held since February 2023. In this role, Ms Finlayson has focused on strengthening alignment within RMIT’s operations portfolio and working closely with senior leadership to ensure strong cohesion on strategy execution across the institution.
During her tenure at Monash, Ms Finlayson was responsible for transformative contributions to the University. She led the adoption of innovative and experimental technologies to enhance the student and staff experience, and enabled Monash to successfully pioneer modern digital and service delivery standards.
Her achievements at Monash include a significant expansion in the use of the University’s UniCRM (Salesforce) platform, which won the 2019 Australian Business Award for CRM Innovation and further strengthened the University’s reputation as a pioneering leader within the Australian higher education sector. Ms Finlayson was also recognised as a state finalist for the 2019 Telstra Business Women’s Award for her tireless efforts to build the quality and quantity of female leaders in what has been a traditionally male-dominated sector.
From October 2021 until early 2023, Ms Finlayson held the role of Chief Digital and Student Services Officer at Monash, where she championed new ways of working across the University’s eSolutions function and successfully integrated the Student Services function into the portfolio, enabling further digital transformation and service reform.
Ms Finlayson is an accomplished executive with a prolific track record in strategy development, organisational transformation, change implementation and people leadership across the public sector, corporate consulting and private enterprise. Her extensive experience and capabilities will be instrumental as she assumes leadership of the Vice-Chancellor’s portfolio and responsibility over a wide range of strategic and operational matters of importance to the Monash Group.
We congratulate Ms Finlayson and wish her success as she returns to Monash University to commence her new appointment in May 2024.