Senior Director, Travel & Expense Program (CEMI)

About this role

About the Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI) The Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI) is a multi-year program designed to improve the experience of students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, patients, and partners by unifying and enhancing administrative systems and processes across all Cornell University locations. Its name CEMI is said as “See Me” because the focus is on you: the people who use Cornell’s systems and data to accomplish your goals.

The Opportunity Cornell University is seeking an visionary, innovative, strategic, and collaborative leader to serve as our Senior Director, Travel & Expense Program (CEMI). This is a rare opportunity to establish and launch Cornell's first enterprise-wide Travel & Expense program, creating a best-in-class experience that supports our global community of students, faculty, researchers, clinicians, staff, guests, and visitors.

Reporting to the Associate Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer, the Senior Director will design, launch, and lead a comprehensive Travel & Expense program that serves Cornell's diverse ecosystem, including Cornell Ithaca, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell Tech, and affiliated Cornell entities.

As a key leader within the Cornell Enterprise Modernization Initiative (CEMI), you will shape the vision, operating model, governance, technology strategy, traveler experience, supplier partnerships, duty of care programs, analytics capabilities, sustainability initiatives, and service delivery approach that will define the future of travel and expense management across Cornell.

This role offers the opportunity to create meaningful impact at scale, influencing the travel and expense experience for more than 30,000 students and thousands of faculty, staff, researchers, clinicians, and visitors across Cornell's global community.

What You'll Do Enterprise Strategy, Transformation, and Governance • Develop and execute the strategy for Cornell's enterprise Travel & Expense program, aligned with CEMI and institutional priorities. • Design and implement a One Cornell Travel & Expense operating model that unifies Ithaca, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell Tech, and affiliated entities. • Establish governance structures, decision-making frameworks, policies, standards, and accountability models. • Develop multi-year roadmaps that align people, processes, technology, service delivery, organizational change, and user experience priorities. • Lead cross-functional initiatives, steering committees, and executive stakeholder forums.

Elevate the Traveler Experience • Deliver a streamlined booking-to-reimbursement experience — with measurable reductions in cycle time, out-of-pocket costs, and policy exceptions — for faculty, staff, students, guests, visitors, researchers, and clinicians. • Lead the redesign of travel booking, reimbursement, payment, and support processes to reduce administrative burden and improve usability. • Develop scalable solutions that support academic travel, student programs, research travel, clinical travel, guest travel, recruitment travel, visiting scholars, conferences, and institutional events. • Apply customer journey mapping and service design principles. • Ensure Travel & Expense programs support accessibility, inclusion, global engagement, and student success.

Lead Technology, Innovation, and Service Delivery • Serve as the business lead for Cornell's Travel & Expense technology ecosystem. • Partner with IT, Finance, HR, Payroll, Procurement, and stakeholders to optimize technologies. • Own the roadmap for the online booking tool (OBT), the expense platform, corporate card and virtual payment programs, and AI-enabled audit, receipt capture, and automation capabilities. • Define the traveler support model — including tiered service, after-hours support, VIP/executive travel, and group/event travel handling — and evaluate shared-service opportunities across Cornell entities.

Strategic Travel Management Company (TMC) & Supplier Partnership Management • Serve as the owner of Cornell's TMC relationship, overseeing contract governance, SLA and KPI management, service escalations, quarterly business reviews, and continuous improvement. • Lead periodic TMC market assessments and RFPs to ensure the service model aligns with Cornell's academic, research, and clinical travel profiles. • Manage strategic partnerships with airlines, hotels, ground transportation, and corporate card providers, including negotiated program agreements and preferred supplier programs. • Oversee integration and data sharing among the TMC, OBT, the expense platform, HR/payroll, and duty-of-care systems.

Advance Traveler Safety & Duty of Care • Support Cornell's global duty-of-care program, including partnering with Risk Management, Global Operations, International SOS (or an equivalent medical/security assistance provider), and Weill Cornell Medicine • Establish policies and workflows for high-risk destination travel, export controls, and international research and clinical travel in coordination with Research Administration. • Integrate duty-of-care data feeds from the TMC, OBT, and the corporate card program into a single traveler-tracking capability.

Drive Compliance, Risk, Sustainability, and Stewardship • Modernize travel and expense policies. • Partner with Finance, Tax, Audit, Legal, Research Administration, Human Resources, Sustainability, Global Operations, and Risk Management stakeholders. • Collaborate with Procurement and Category Management teams to optimize suppliers and contracts. • Ensure compliance with Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200), the Fly America Act, Open Skies agreements, per diem rules, and Sunshine Act / Open Payments reporting for Weill Cornell Medicine clinical and sponsored travel. • Advance Cornell's sustainability and climate objectives through travel program design and supplier partnerships. • Develop sustainability metrics and reporting capabilities.

Data, Analytics & Sourcing

Similar jobs

• Senior Director, Travel & Expense Program (CEMI) — Cornell University (Cornellpositions) · Remote
• Director, Travel & Expense — Databricks · San Francisco, California; United States
• Director of Travel & Expense — Integritymarketing · Dallas, TX
• Manager, Travel & Expense Operations — Mineralystherapeutics · Remote
• Senior Manager, Travel Programs — Crusoe · Denver, CO - US
• Senior Manager, Travel Programs — Crusoe · San Francisco, CA - US
• Corporate Card & Travel Expense Associate — Abglobal · Nashville, Tennessee
• Manager, Expense and Corporate Card Operations — Xylem · Charlotte, North Carolina | Fort Mill, South Carolina