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Mark Finlan has 15 years of experience in management consulting including deep expertise in the public sector and higher education. Mark heads the Higher Education and the Organization and Human Capital practices within Censeo.
Mark has built his reputation on leading complex, organization-wide programs to align strategy, improve performance, and reduce costs for some of the most well-known companies, universities, and federal agencies. He has overseen strategic projects at a variety of universities including the College of William & Mary, Georgetown University, University of Louisville, and Georgia Tech and a variety of Federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Prior to his time at Censeo, Mark was a Principal at Bain & Company where he gained a variety of experience across the public and private sectors as an emerging leader in their Performance Improvement and Organization practices. While there, his work with a number of universities including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Cornell University, and Stony Brook University comprised the foundation of the higher education practice at Bain. Mark’s work at both UNC and Cornell were cited as examples of universities better managing their operations in a 2010 speech on the state of education by President Obama. Mark also serves as Censeo’s Chief Talent Officer working closely with HR internally on a variety of areas including recruiting, performance management, and employee engagement.

Expertise Highlights

  • Led campus-wide cost transformations at numerous universities with budgets ranging in size from less than $100M to greater than $2.5B, including UNC where the Carolina Counts initiative currently boasts greater than $60M in annual savings.
  • Led the redesign of a field-based organization spread across 25 locations at a Federal Agency to update and modernize their staffing and engagement model, ultimately cutting their budget in half while maintaining mission goals.
  • Helped improve the organizational effectiveness of a Federal agency’s acquisition function and realize substantial savings (i.e., $50M+ goal) in spend on goods and services through more robust category management, strategic sourcing, and supplier performance management.
  • Led corporate IT cost reduction effort for Fortune 500 insurance provider that identified opportunities to reduce 20-25% of spend and defined improved governance model.
  • Worked with multiple non-profits including The Common Application, Higher Achievement, and American Councils for International Education on strategic planning and growth strategy initiatives.