Top UM executive is heading to this North Carolina university
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After exactly six years managing the finances for the largest private university in South Florida, Jacqueline Travisano will step down this summer from the leadership team of the University of Miami and move north.
Travisano, 53, joined the UM as its executive vice president for business and finance and its chief operating officer in June 2017. She will leave at the end of June to become executive vice president and chief financial officer at Wake Forest University, a private institution with about 9,000 students in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
“The ‘why’ is simple. Higher education is my love and my career. The opportunity to serve Wake Forest University — which has consistently ranked as a top 30 university for the last 27 years — as executive vice president was just thrilling,” Travisano said Thursday in an emailed statement to the Herald.
“In addition, North Carolina was always our ‘long-term plan.’ My husband and I own property in the state already, and my husband is a licensed general contractor in North Carolina,” Travisano said.
READ MORE: UM names Jacqueline Travisano, top executive at Nova Southeastern, as its new COO
Jacqueline Menendez, a UM spokeswoman, said she couldn’t immediately comment on UM’s plans to replace Travisano.
“Dr. Travisano announced her departure earlier this week,” Menendez wrote in an email to the Herald. “I will let you know once we determine what comes next.”
UM President Julio Frenk, announced the news “with mixed feelings” in an email Monday to the university community.
“While this is a bittersweet moment for us, I know her professional acumen and collaborative spirit will be an outstanding asset to our ACC sister school in North Carolina,” Frenk said.
“We are thrilled for Jackie as she embarks on this new chapter in her impressive career,” he added.
Frenk credited Travisano for helping UM navigate the pandemic and helping to raise more than $12 million for the annual Dolphins Challenge Cancer event that benefits the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of UM’s medical school.
Travisano oversaw facilities, information technology, emergency management, parking, human resources and the UM Police Department. She also handled the university’s accounting, audit and compliance, endowments and pension assets.
Before UM, Travisano spent nearly six years at Nova Southeastern University, a private school in Davie, as executive vice president and chief operating officer, from 2011 to 2017.
In 2018, she joined the board of AutoNation, the Fort Lauderdale-based automotive retailer. She’ll keep working on that from afar, she said.
During her time in South Florida, she also served on the board of the March of Dimes, ARC Broward and United Way Miami.
Travisano received a bachelor’s in accounting from Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania, an MBA from Chatham University in Pittsburgh and a doctorate in higher education leadership from Nova Southeastern, according to her LinkedIn page. She’s also a certified public accountant.
