Laura McCain Patterson served as associate vice president and chief information officer for the University of Michigan, where she guided the strategy and delivery of world-class computing and digital resources to advance the goals of the university. While at the University of Michigan, she led the digital transformation of university operations and the implementation of an extensive data infrastructure that drives the university today. She also worked in close partnership with academic and administrative departments to move technology to scale through by consolidating on-premise technologies, leveraging cloud offerings, and building data and compute intensive services that advance the teaching and research missions of the university.
After her retirement in 2016, Laura joined MOR Associates as a leadership coach, program leader and consultant, focusing on the development of Information Technology leaders in universities. She works one on one with leaders to help them grow to their best selves and chart a course for development for the future. She enjoys working with teams and organizations on strategy development, digital transformation, and change management.
Laura will deliver the keynote “Together, We Rise”, in which she will contemplate the leadership capabilities and strategies critical for the initiatives underway at the University of Wisconsin. She will share her lessons learned from the successes and setbacks of her experiences in leading enterprise-wide change in a research university culture.