John Workman

John has more than 15 years of experience in higher education consulting and advisory, helping universities across the globe achieve their strategic, financial, and operational goals.

Most budget or resource allocation models incent revenue growth by design, but best-in-class models effectively balance incentives for revenue growth, cost control, and support of institutional goals, such as research and student success.”

About John

John provides strategic, budget, and facilities expertise to universities across the globe to help them achieve their strategic and financial goals. His recent work has focused on academic program launches, facilities and space management, labor savings and staff productivity, program review, and university budget models.

Throughout his career, John has:

• Led a leadership team at a U.S. land-grant research institution in a budget model redesign, prioritizing and navigating key decision milestones and ultimately agreeing on a new model in less than two months.
• Helped modernize the resource allocation model at a U.K. Russell Group university, creating a new revenue allocation methodology to smooth year-to-year volatility and soften penalties for faculties with low international enrollment.
• Led an Australian university leadership team through a rapid prioritization of potential cost-saving tactics and identified 10 million Australian dollars in savings.
• Developed a strategic reserve fund at a U.S. historically Black university, including a dedicated revenue tax on academic units as well as a faculty equity fund subaccount.
• Guided a post-1992 U.K. university in establishing an annual academic program review process, including committee participants, key performance indicators and triggers, and turnaround guidance for watch list programs.

Prior to joining Huron, John served as the managing director of EAB International, where he led the global higher education advisory and research division. Previously at EAB, John led several advisory memberships, including the Business Affairs Forum, the practice for chief business officers, and the Facilities Forum, the dedicated practice for facilities leaders. He also served as a senior consultant and practice manager at Advisory Board.

John participates in and has presented at many higher education conferences, including those organized by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), APPA, Universities UK (UUK), the Association of Heads of University Administration (AHUA), the Heads of University Management & Administration Network in Europe (HUMANE), the Association for Tertiary Education Management (ATEM), and Universities Australia.

John received a doctorate from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Tennessee. He is a National Science Foundation research fellow, a National Defense Science and Engineering research fellow, and a Barry Goldwater scholar.