CU names Nesbitt VP of Employee and Information Services
University of Colorado President Bruce D. Benson today named Kathy Nesbitt vice president of employee and information services.
Nesbitt, most recently executive director of the Department of Personnel & Administration and personnel director for the state of Colorado, will be responsible for a wide range of services, including payroll for CU employees, employment policy, compliance education, leadership and organizational development, benefits design, information security and enterprise technology systems, and employee data management and metrics. She will also be responsible for the CU health plans offered through the University of Colorado Health and Welfare Trust.
“Kathy Nesbitt has a remarkable depth and breadth of experience and expertise that will serve the University of Colorado well,” Benson said. “She will allow us to build on the significant progress we have made in employee services, health care and information technology.”
Her appointment is effective at the end of the year.
“I’m excited to join the CU team and continue the momentum the university has in key areas related to employees and technology,” Nesbitt said. “CU has a talented faculty and staff and I look forward to helping meet the needs of Colorado’s third-largest employer and my alma mater.”
She replaces E. Jill Pollock, who has accepted another officer role at CU to develop and implement strategic university initiatives for executive succession planning and intercampus services.
Nesbitt had a variety of experiences in the public and private sectors before she served on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s cabinet as the state’s chief personnel director. She was human resources director for Kaiser Permanente for nearly a decade, served as staff attorney for the Mountain States Employers Council, and was an attorney for Qwest Communications.
Nesbitt was named a “2013 Public Official of the Year” by Governing Magazine and received the National Association of State Personnel Executives’ 2013 Eugene H. Rooney, Jr. Leadership Award for her work to craft and pass a constitutional amendment to reform the state personnel system. In October, she was named a “Woman of Distinction” by the Girl Scouts of America, which honors community leaders for their contributions to girls and young women in Colorado.
During her tenure at the state, Nesbitt also created an employee wellness program and oversaw replacement of the state’s 23-year-old financial system with a state-of-the-art, integrated financial system that manages $29 billion in financial transactions annually.
Nesbitt is an alumna of the University of Colorado Boulder and earned her juris doctorate degree from Southern University Law Center. She also completed the Executive Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
About the University of Colorado
The University of Colorado is a premier public research university with four campuses: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. With more than 59,700 students (and another 8,000 taking courses for credit), over 4,700 full-time instructional faculty members and an additional 1,200 research faculty across the four campuses, CU is the largest institution of higher education in Colorado. It has some 29,000 employees and a $3.3 billion annual budget. CU researchers attracted more than $861 million in sponsored research funding in fiscal year 2013-14. Academic prestige is marked by the university five Nobel laureates, eight MacArthur “Genius” Fellows, 20 astronauts and 19 Rhodes Scholars. For more information about the CU system and access to campus resources, visit www.cu.edu.
For more information, contact:
Ken McConnellogue 303.815.8481 or ken.mcconnellogue@cu.edu