University operations · Systems · Canada
17 buildings.
94 people. $2.8M budget.
Strategic leadership across a 17-building precinct with a 94 FTE unionised team and a $2.8M operational budget. Championed end-to-end EventPro implementation, automated reporting, standardised SOPs and chaired cross-campus operations across IT, security, facilities, catering and the Dean of Students.
University of Toronto
17
Buildings
94
FTE unionised team
$2.8M
Operational budget
100%
H&S compliance
Context
University of Toronto ancillary services — a 17-building precinct spanning graduations, guest-lecture series, the Toronto International Festival of Authors and daily campus operations. Predictable staff turnover was already an operational risk.
Starting situation
A 94 FTE unionised team, a $2.8M operational budget, and workflows scattered across email threads, tribal memory and legacy tools. Cross-campus coordination happened in parallel silos: IT, security, facilities, catering, Dean of Students.
Scale & constraints
Unionised workforce (with all the change-management discipline that implies). 24/7 on-call readiness. Zero-tolerance H&S environment. Any change had to be deliverable inside existing collective-agreement terms.
Actions & systems
Configured Eventpro to the institutional context. Authored SOPs and video training manuals for staff and student associations. Introduced automated reporting so leaders steered from data, not anecdote. Chaired weekly cross-campus operations meetings — IT, security, facilities, catering, Dean of Students — turning silos into a single decision cadence.
Measured result
100% H&S compliance across the portfolio. Toronto International Festival of Authors delivered end-to-end. Cross-campus decisions consolidated into one weekly meeting cadence. Reference from the Business Manager available on request.
Attribution & evidence
Business Manager reference contactable directly. SOP library, video training and weekly reporting artefacts available under NDA. Union-side references available with prior notice.
Sustainability
SOP library and video training remain in use. Weekly operations cadence continues under the next Business Manager. The system was designed to survive the person who built it — and it has.
Related service
This is the operating pattern behind the University Workflow & AI Readiness Review and the Interim Project & Program Leadership engagements — mapping institutional knowledge, codifying workflows, and installing a single decision cadence.
See the AI Readiness ReviewInstitutional-scale operations don't fail because of talent. They fail because knowledge lives in inboxes.
Next step
Inheriting a complex operation?
Ancillary services, rebuilt to run without a hero.