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Advancing Operational Excellence and Organizational Alignment

Dear Colleagues,

When President Poon announced LMU’s current leadership structure last year, he described an opportunity to strengthen integration, collaboration, and responsiveness in service to our mission and the student experience. Over the past year, I have been grateful for the opportunity to work with leaders and teams across the EVP/COO portfolio to explore new ways talented colleagues can advance the university’s operational excellence, effectiveness, and long-term sustainability. The common thread across these areas is that they steward many of the university’s operations, administration, reputation, and outreach functions.

Our work begins with listening and learning. I am deeply grateful for the generosity of spirit so many colleagues have demonstrated through their expertise, guidance, and candor. Across our areas, teams have continued to perform at a high level while also helping us ask essential questions about how LMU’s people, systems, resources, and partnerships can work more effectively together. I remain grateful for that partnership and hope colleagues will continue helping me better understand their work, even as I try to raise the right questions and issues to help us think critically, intentionally, and thoughtfully about how we serve the university. Through your patience and example, I hope to serve the university more effectively in return.

In the magis spirit, I am continually looking for opportunities to strengthen institutional integration and alignment, particularly where internal operations, external engagement, events, facilities, partnerships, and student and community support naturally intersect. As I conclude my first academic year in this role, I am implementing several initial changes designed to sharpen focus, improve coordination, and better align functions that will benefit from deeper organizational integration and greater operational synchronicity. I believe these changes provide a strong foundation from which to build. Our Leadership Organizational Chart summarizes the changes below.

Operations Becomes Operations and Strategy
The Operations portfolio, led by VP Trevor Wiseman, will become Operations and Strategy, reflecting an increasingly integrated focus on university operations, planning, events, and institutional coordination. This area will also help advance organizational innovation and agility by rethinking how the university approaches long-term challenges, operational effectiveness, and revenue diversification. In partnership with External Relations and Strategic Partnerships, the area will also co-lead LMU’s upcoming renewal of its 20-year master plan.

  • LMU Radio—our 24/7 federally regulated station that relies on more than 100 on- and off-campus community members to operate—is directed by Lydia Ammossow and will transition to Operations and Strategy.
  • Executive Affairs, directed by Debbie Cavanagh, manages a variety of functions related to the President’s Office, Office of the First Spouse, leadership events, and campus venues, and will also transition to Operations and Strategy.

Together, these changes bring functions with significant operational, venue, event, and community-facing responsibilities into closer alignment while allowing the university to further professionalize and elevate key experiences for students, families, guests, and community members.

External Relations and Strategic Partnerships (ERSP) Sharpens External Focus
With LMU Radio and specific internally facing commencement responsibilities moving into Operations and Strategy, External Relations and Strategic Partnerships, led by VP Marianna Villa, will sharpen its focus on external partnerships, civic and community engagement, and the increasingly complex local, state, and federal legislative and compliance landscape.

  • This structure will position ERSP to provide more comprehensive and responsive support on government, legislative, and compliance matters while helping co-lead the university’s upcoming 20-year master plan renewal process—particularly in navigating community engagement, legislative coordination, and the multi-year public hearing process.
  • This structure will also help advance President Poon’s vision for a more proactively externally engaged university that expands LMU’s partnerships and visibility beyond the bluff, with increased emphasis on mission-driven partnerships that enhance visibility, deepen engagement, and support net-neutral or revenue-generating opportunities aligned with the university’s strategic priorities.

LMU Children’s Center Joins Auxiliary and Business Services
LMU Children’s Center will transition to Auxiliary and Business Services under VP Andy O’Reilly. LMUCC will continue to be directed by Ani Shabazian, with continued focus on best-in-class early childhood development and care, upcoming renovations, academic collaboration, and an ambitious fundraising strategy that supports LMUCC’s long-term vitality.

Parking and Transportation Moves to Campus Safety Services
Parking and Transportation, led by Gary Bolton, will move to Campus Safety Services under VP Roberto Aguirre. This change recognizes the close operational relationship among parking, transportation, and the broader CSS teams, enabling these areas to benefit from a more coordinated operational approach.

Facilities Management Broadens into Facilities Management and Planning
Facilities Management will become Facilities Management and Planning. When the new VP FMP is announced in the weeks ahead, we will rethink how we communicate, renovate, steward, and develop campuses of the future. You may notice that “campuses” is now plural. That is intentional. Facilities Management and Planning will now integrate stewardship responsibilities across all university properties—on-campus and off-campus, including residential, commercial, and other spaces—creating a more unified approach to managing and evolving LMU’s physical environment. Thoughtful stewardship and development of our physical spaces supports every dimension of the university’s mission and the transformational opportunities ahead.

April Kately, senior director for Construction, Projects, and Infrastructure, will serve as interim lead for Facilities Management until the new vice president is named and begins later this summer.

Enrollment Marketing Resources Become More Integrated
In Marketing and Brand Management, led by VP Bernie Paine, Nick Simonton, director of Enrollment Marketing and Communications, will lead the integration of undergraduate and graduate marketing resources into a more unified enrollment-supporting structure. This will bolster our partnership with our Enrollment Management colleagues and align resources around LMU’s undergraduate, graduate, and professional enrollment priorities. These changes are part of an ongoing process of listening, learning, and improving how we organize our work to serve LMU more effectively. In some cases, they formalize existing connections; in others, they create new opportunities for stronger collaboration, clearer accountability, and better use of shared expertise. As always, we are striving to be thoughtful stewards of the university’s resources—aligning people, functions, and investments in ways that maximize impact, reduce duplication, contain costs where possible, and strengthen our ability to serve students and the broader university community. I am deeply grateful to the leaders and teams approaching this work with care, openness, and a shared commitment to LMU’s mission. We will communicate additional guidance as we move forward, and I welcome your questions, counsel, and partnership as we continue building on our work together.

With gratitude,

John