|
Cornell's Yoke San Reynolds To Fill
U.Va.'s New Vice President For Finance Position
March 14, 2001--
Yoke San L. Reynolds, one of Cornell University's top financial
officers, has been named the University of Virginia's vice president
for finance. Reynolds joins the University at the end of May, following
an eight-month search to fill the newly created position.
Reynolds
will manage U.Va.'s primary financial operations including
human resources; financial administration, such as general accounting
and sponsored-programs administration; business operations; business
analysis; and risk management. She also will take part in financial
compliance efforts, the setting of financial and administrative
policies, and institutional planning efforts.
She
will report to Leonard W. Sandridge, executive
vice president and chief operating officer, and serve on President
John T. Casteen III's cabinet with other vice presidents and senior
staff members.
"Yoke
San's position is a key part of the restructuring plan that the
president and Board of Visitors began more than a year ago,"
Sandridge said. "She will take over several financial and business
duties that previously rested directly with me." Reynolds'
appointment will allow Sandridge to devote more time to his chief
operating officer role, including overseeing the Medical Center
and strengthening the University's administrative, financial and
support infrastructure.
"We
are pleased she accepted our offer. She brings a wealth of experience
and a record of serious accomplishments," Casteen said.
Reynolds'
16-year background in higher education financial administration
includes a decade at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. and six years at the
State University of New York at Albany, where she rose to assistant
vice president for financial management. She began at Cornell as
university controller, was promoted to associate vice president
and university controller in May 1996, and two years later was named
vice president for financial affairs and university controller.
A
certified public accountant, Reynolds currently serves on the National
Association of College and University Business Officers President's
Ad Hoc Committee on the Cost of Education. She also chairs that
organization's Accounting Principles Council and its Subcommittee
on Managerial Analysis and Decision Support. She has master's
degrees in economics from the University of Michigan and in accounting
from the business school at SUNY-Albany. She received her undergraduate
degree in economics from the University of Singapore and a music
diploma from the Royal Conservatory in Toronto.
"Yoke
San is highly successful and respected," Sandridge said. "She
is recognized for her strong technical skills and as a leader in
her field at the national level. She has the professional expertise
and personal characteristics to be very successful and effective
at U.Va."
At
Cornell, Reynolds directed the merger of financial operations for
two distinct parts of the university its four state and six
private colleges. Instead of mandating change from the top, she
is credited with facilitating discussions between the two financial
staffs and encouraging them to find solutions together that worked
for both. "Putting people side-by-side helped them see differences
that didn't need to be there," she said.
She
instituted a program called TOP "Transforming our Organization
and our People" that helped manage the merger and create
a greater customer-service ethic in the relationship between the
financial office and outlying departments. She also implemented
new human resources and payroll systems and a related reclassification
of jobs.
"She
fits well with our organization," Casteen said, "and brings
one more element to the new structures necessary for us to operate
in the current environment that began with the recession of the
early 1990s and reached the public-policy level as the General Assembly
and Governors Allen and Gilmore supported decentralization.'
Working with Leonard, she can help make the most of the circumstances
that now exist, thus benefiting faculty and students as well as
the state of Virginia."
Reynolds
said she was impressed with the reputation and stability of the
University's leadership, including Sandridge and Casteen, and
with the University's stature among public universities. "It's
the number-one public institution in the country," she said.
"When I was there, I could feel the history and heritage."
Her
husband, Bruce L. Reynolds, a member of the economics faculty at
Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., will join the U.Va. faculty
in August. An economist who specializes in the economies of East
and Southeast Asia, in particular China, he will have joint appointments
in the new International Residential College and the McIntire School
of Commerce. He holds an undergraduate degree from Yale University
and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.
The
Reynolds have two children, Katherine, a graduate of Harvard University,
and Christopher, a graduate of Yale.
Contact:
Louise Dudley, (804) 924-1400
|