Interim Chief Information Officer

IMMEDIATE INTERIM OPPORTUNITY

Interim Chief Information Officer

Reports to: President

Location: Greater Toronto Area, Ontario

Duration: 6-12 Months

Hybrid working

Our client, a large and complex Ontario post-secondary institution, is seeking an accomplished Interim Chief Information Officer to provide leadership through an important period of transition, modernization and organizational evolution.

This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned technology executive who can combine strategic thinking with hands-on execution.

The organization recognizes that technology has the potential to play a much greater role in how it operates, how decisions are made, how services are delivered and how students experience the institution. The Interim CIO will be asked not simply to manage the existing technology environment, but to challenge conventional thinking about how technology is deployed and where it can fundamentally improve the operating model.

Leading a team of more than 100 technology professionals, the successful executive will initially provide stability, clarity and leadership through transition. Beyond this, they will help establish the priorities, capabilities, operating model and roadmap required for the next stage of the organization's technology journey.

This is therefore a mandate for a builder, modernizer and objective disruptor, someone able to respect what is working while constructively challenging what could be done differently.

The Mandate

The Interim CIO will provide overall leadership to the technology function while working closely with the organization's senior leadership team to determine how technology can better enable its academic, student and operational priorities.

A central component of the mandate will be assessing the technology operating model and identifying opportunities to improve effectiveness, service, scalability and value.

The Interim CIO will be expected to create alignment between technology strategy and organizational strategy, while maintaining a bias toward execution and measurable outcomes.

Key priorities will include:

Technology Strategy & Operating Model

• Assess the current technology environment, capabilities, organizational structure and priorities and establish a clear roadmap for the next phase of modernization.
• Challenge existing assumptions around how technology services are organized, delivered and supported.
• Identify opportunities to simplify processes, reduce complexity, improve scalability and improve the value generated from technology investment.
• Evaluate the appropriate balance between internal capabilities, external partnerships, managed services and selective outsourcing.
• Introduce stronger prioritization and governance disciplines to ensure technology resources are focused on the areas of greatest institutional impact.
• Translate technology strategy into a practical execution agenda with clear accountabilities and outcomes.

Leadership Through Change

The Interim CIO will inherit a substantial team of 100+ technology professionals and will need to quickly establish credibility and provide visible, confident leadership.

The organization operates within a unionized environment. Accordingly, the executive must understand how to lead meaningful organizational and operational change while respecting collective agreements, established processes and employee relationships.

The successful individual will:

• Provide stability and clarity during transition.
• Assess organizational capability, structure and accountabilities.
• Coach and develop technology leaders.
• Build stronger accountability for results.
• Engage employees in the modernization journey.
• Create a strong service and performance culture.
• Navigate change thoughtfully within a complex unionized environment.
• Maintain momentum while making difficult decisions where required.

ERP Optimization & Enterprise Platforms

An important priority will be continuing to optimize the organization's ERP and broader enterprise technology environment.

The Interim CIO will:

• Assess the current ERP implementation and identify opportunities to increase adoption, functionality and organizational value.
• Address process, integration, data and operating-model issues that may inhibit the organization from realizing the full value of its enterprise platforms.
• Challenge the proliferation of unnecessary processes, applications and workarounds where these create complexity.
• Ensure technology modernization is accompanied by process modernization rather than simply automating existing ways of working.
• Strengthen the connection between enterprise systems, organizational processes and user experience.

Cybersecurity, Risk & Resilience

Cybersecurity will be a significant part of the mandate.

The Interim CIO will assess and evolve the organization's cybersecurity posture, governance and protocols, ensuring they remain appropriate for a large, complex and highly distributed post-secondary environment.

The executive will work to strengthen areas including security governance, accountability, organizational awareness and operational resilience, while ensuring cybersecurity is understood as an enterprise risk rather than simply an IT responsibility.

The successful candidate will balance increasingly sophisticated security requirements with the accessibility, flexibility and innovation expected within a modern educational institution.

Cloud & Technology Modernization

The organization has begun elements of its cloud journey, but further opportunity remains to modernize its technology architecture and operating environment.

The Interim CIO will assess where further migration and modernization create genuine operational, financial, resilience or user-experience benefits.

They will bring an objective perspective regarding cloud strategy, legacy environments, technical debt, architecture and application rationalization, ensuring modernization is driven by institutional value rather than technology for technology's sake.

Data Governance, Analytics & Decision Support

Data represents a significant opportunity for the organization.

The Interim CIO will help establish stronger data governance, ownership, quality and analytics capabilities, enabling leaders across the institution to make better and faster decisions based on reliable information.

The mandate will include helping the organization move beyond reporting toward a culture where trusted data and actionable insights routinely inform operational, financial, academic and student-focused decision-making.

This will require both technology leadership and the ability to address the governance, accountability and behavioural changes necessary to establish a more mature data culture.

Artificial Intelligence

The organization recognizes the potentially significant role AI could play in both its operating model and the broader evolution of post-secondary education.

The Interim CIO will help leadership distinguish between experimentation and sustainable enterprise adoption, identifying practical opportunities where AI, automation and emerging technologies can improve productivity, decision-making and service delivery.

Equally important will be establishing appropriate governance around the adoption of these technologies, including cybersecurity, privacy, data, risk and responsible use.

The successful executive will bring curiosity and ambition around AI while maintaining the pragmatic judgment required to translate emerging technology into sustainable institutional value.

The Evolving Student Experience

Technology is increasingly integral to the complete student journey.

How students learn, interact with faculty, access services, consume information and engage with an institution continues to evolve.

The Interim CIO will work across the organization to consider how technology can help create a simpler, more integrated, personalized and contemporary student experience.

The opportunity extends beyond classroom technology. It is about understanding how technology can differentiate the institution and reduce friction across the entire student journey.

Service Culture

A key leadership priority will be continuing to evolve the technology function toward a highly responsive, accountable and customer-focused service organization.

The Interim CIO will establish clear expectations around service delivery, ownership, responsiveness and partnership with internal stakeholders.

Technology should increasingly be viewed as an enabler and partner to the organization, rather than simply a provider of systems and infrastructure.

The Ideal Interim Executive

The successful candidate will be an accomplished CIO or senior enterprise technology executive who has led a sizeable, complex technology function through significant modernization and organizational change.

They will bring experience across a combination of:

• Enterprise technology strategy and execution.
• Leadership of large, multidisciplinary technology teams.
• Technology operating-model transformation.
• ERP and enterprise application optimization.
• Cloud migration and modernization.
• Cybersecurity, risk and technology governance.
• Data governance, analytics and information management.
• AI, automation and emerging technologies.
• Process optimization and organizational simplification.
• Managed services, strategic sourcing and outsourcing.
• Vendor and commercial management.
• Digital/customer experience transformation.
• Leadership in a unionized environment.
• Organizational change and talent development.

Experience within higher education or the broader public sector would be highly relevant, although the organization will also be interested in executives from other large, complex and regulated environments who can bring fresh thinking and transferable experience.

Leadership Style

This mandate requires more than technical credibility.

The ideal executive will be pragmatic, curious, commercially minded and comfortable challenging the status quo. They will know when to listen and preserve institutional knowledge, but equally when to push the organization toward a different approach.

They will be capable of moving comfortably between the boardroom and the technology organization, translating complex technology issues into clear discussions about risk, cost, service, productivity and organizational outcomes.

Most importantly, this individual will be an objective disruptor with strong execution discipline.

They will leave the organization not simply with better technology, but with a stronger technology function, clearer priorities, improved governance, better use of data, enhanced cybersecurity and a pragmatic roadmap for how technology can enable the institution's future operating model.

The attraction of the assignment

For an experienced CIO, this is a rare opportunity to have meaningful impact in a relatively short period.

The mandate combines people leadership, technology modernization, ERP optimization, cyber, cloud, data and analytics, AI, operating-model transformation and student experience within one of the most rapidly changing sectors in Canada.

The successful interim will have the platform to challenge existing thinking, accelerate decisions and help redefine the role technology plays across the institution.

This is not a mandate to simply keep the lights on. It is an opportunity to shape what technology leadership, capability and service should look like for the organization's next chapter.

PLEASE SEND YOUR CV (AS A WORD DOC) TO: Interim.Applications@LHHknightsbridge.com (Subject: Job Title)

LHH Knightsbridge Interim Management is a service to help our clients address a wide range of scenarios including leadership support due to sudden departures, driving key change initiatives or leading transformation projects. Our interim executives step in with minimal downtime to meet specific objectives and deliver results. All have held senior positions in the past and have now chosen to offer their unique depth and breadth of experience to organizations on a limited engagement basis.

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Lee Hecht Harrison Knightsbridge Corp. is committed to providing equitable treatment and accommodation to ensure a barrier-free recruitment process. In accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and our AODA policy, a request for accommodation will be accepted as part of the hiring process. If you require accommodation to apply or if selected to participate in an assessment process, please provide your accommodation needs in advance to the Recruitment Lead for this opportunity.

We thank all interested candidates in advance; however, only individuals selected for interviews will be contacted.

October 2026