Chad J. Kainz | Overview | Biographical Sketch | Resume/CV
Overview
I gravitate toward work that centers on the critical execution and exploitation of technology to transform and positively affect change. To me the outcome is what matters, which builds upon a critical understanding that failure is easy and success is — quite frankly — hard. This mindset has led me to develop my skills and abilities, and drive for sustainable success across areas such as:
- Leading organizations to achieve vision-aligned outcomes
- Advancing strategic objectives through focused innovation and technology investment
- Assessing and managing change and transformation
- Crafting employee, learner and consumer experiences enabled through technology
- Optimizing toward shared processes, standards and technology infrastructure
- Fostering the growth of partnerships and relationships
Overall, I see of myself as a technologist and strategist, wrangler and leader, and a creative and critical thinker who explores multiple perspectives to find appropriate ways to make things happen through shared effort and investment. I balance vision and aspiration with capability and risk that often span and transcend solutions, products, services and organizations to get things done.
And yes, I’m a Star Wars fan.
Biographical Sketch
Following a philosophy of “people first, technology second,” Chad leads, advises and creates vision-aligned organizations, products and services that take advantage of advancements in IT to achieve strategic goals. He is passionate about innovation and learning, and seeks ways to develop organizations to face unforeseen challenges and disruptions with the confidence to work through and partner with others to find paths to success.
Most recently as an Associate Director and COE Leader for Transformation & Client Experience at CrossVue, Chad advises, guides and aligns commercial, non-profit, and government organizations to achieve their digital transformation goals triggered by shifts to SaaS-based services and enterprise platforms such as Workday.
With 30+ years of professional experience, Chad specializes in strategy, planning, and transformation in the areas of leadership alignment, service delivery, worker/student experience, and the applied use of technology to transform organizations and organizational culture. In addition to his current work with CrossVue, Chad draws upon his 18 years at the University of Chicago, which included serving as its Assistant CIO and Executive Director for Campus & Academic IT Services; 8 years within strategic consulting at Blackboard leading and guiding digital/online learning, student experience, and learning technology transformation projects at the institutional, regional, and state levels as well as for NASA/JPL, IBM, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, SkillsCommons, and other organizations; 4 years as a SaaS/Workday Strategy Advisor and Senior Manager focused on large scale SaaS transformation for commercial, healthcare, energy, government and higher education sectors within the Strategy & Transformation practice at Collaborative Solutions; and 2+ years as a co-PI and co-director of a Mellon-funded shared services planning project with UC Berkeley that included guiding research, planning and contributions from over 500 people that spanned more than 100 colleges, universities, foundations and companies worldwide.
Engaging in innovation, sharing experience and promoting quality practice is an important part of Chad’s work. He has contributed to research projects funded by the Mellon Foundation, IBM, Sun Microsystems, National Library of Medicine and the British Library, and joint efforts of the Ivy Plus, Big Ten Academic Alliance (formerly the CIC), CNI, CSG, NITLE, EDUCAUSE, and Internet2. He is a member of IEEE, the IEEE Computer Society, and IEEE Standards Association, and served as the vice-chair of the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee from 2003-2007.