Suresh Balakrishnan is currently the Deputy CIO and asst. vice chancellor at the 13-institution University System of Maryland. Suresh chairs or is involved with several initiatives and activities, including cyber security, leveraged software and maintenance procurements, IT operations and cloud-based services, IT policies, metrics and peer benchmarking, collaborative abd shared services, disaster recovery, identity management, innovations in the educational use of technology, grid computing, and others. Suresh also serves on the regents' Economic Development and Technology Commercialization and Audit committees and chairs the finance function for MDREN and CSM.
Prior to joining the university, Suresh worked for two major consulting firms: Deloitte & Touche and Andersen Consulting. Suresh worked primarily with Fortune 500 companies, advising senior management on issues related to business strategies, IT strategies and architecture as well as IT governance, ROI and accountability. Suresh also managed large system implementation projects and performed operations reviews those clients. Suresh has had considerable experience with using commercial SDLC methodologies to implement systems. Suresh's earlier experience includes co-developing an enterprise-wide data and applications architecture for Raychem Corporation, a Fortune 500 polymer manufacturer that has since been acquired by NCR Corporation.
Suresh holds an MBA with concentrations in information systems and finance from the Anderson School at UCLA as well as a BS degree in Chemical Engineering. In addition, Suresh serves as a member of the EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Information Security Council Governance, Risk and Compliance Working Group and holds CISA and CIA designations.
This ECAR research bulletin analyzes how several IT offices, largely at Maryland colleges and universities, are responding to the challenges issued in the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) initiative.
This ECAR research bulletin suggests a framework to provide resiliency in higher education by placing such considerations up front in the evaluation, selection, and design of information technology (IT) services and building them into the business practices of the institution.
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