NJIT Finance Division's Lisa Easton Earns Spot in Leadership Development Fellows Program

Lisa Easton, assistant vice president of Strategic Budget Planning in NJIT’s finance division, has earned a coveted spot on the 2023-24 National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) Fellows Program.

NACUBO is a non-profit organization founded in 1962 which represents business officers from 1,700 schools across the country. The immersive leadership development program trains higher education professionals who are seeking a chief business officer (CBO) role. Over the next year, NACUBO Fellows will work with higher education presidents, provosts, CBOs, and other experts as they expand their management, communications, and leadership skills and strengthen the core competencies needed to succeed as senior leaders.

The Fellows program, which started in 2016, is a one-year leadership development program designed to provide support, education, and learning opportunities to develop an understanding of the complexities of the CBO role. Participants will attend multi-day workshops, attend quarterly meetings, and even host other Fellows at NJIT to address institutional challenges.

“The entire program is very comprehensive, engaging the participants from both a professional level while also providing them access to higher education best practices from leading institutions across the country,” said Easton. “I’m very much looking forward to participating in all aspects of the program, but visiting other NACUBO fellows campuses is a unique opportunity I’m very excited about.”

Easton’s selection comes in the middle of a critical time for the finance division, as she is a leading figure in the group’s strategic effort to redesign the university budget model. In the last few years, NJIT has experienced intensive growth in its student population and research enterprise necessitating changes in budget methodologies to meet institutional needs. Easton meets routinely with major university stakeholders from academic, operational and support groups to both ensure greater transparency and accountability of the budget model redesign process. 

“The budget model redesign project will establish a new incentive- and resource-allocation based budget methodology that is decentralized and data-driven and which motivates creativity leading to new and enhanced revenue streams,” Easton explained.

 “At NACUBO, we’ve doubled down on our efforts to strengthen the strategic leadership capabilities of business officers and their teams, and the NACUBO Fellows Program is a shining example of success in that area,” said Randy Roberson, NACUBO’s vice president of leadership development. “We are so proud to welcome this cohort of future chief business officers and look forward to helping them finetune their leadership skills.”