Tokumbo Shobowale, The New School’s executive vice president for business and operations, was chosen to assume the position of chief financial officer (CFO), senior vice president and treasure effective Oct. 13, according to a university-wide announcement from University President Tania Tetlow sent on Aug. 29.
Following the departure of Martha Hirst, the administrator that previously filled these roles, on April 13, a committee chaired by Dennis C. Jacobs, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, conducted the nationwide search.
Shobowale currently serves as the executive vice president for business and operations at The New School, a position he has held since November 2013. In the president’s announcement, Tetlow pointed to Shobowale’s experience in financial planning and execution, noting his ability to discover new opportunities despite financial constraints.
“He instilled the kind of long-term budget planning that leads to real strategy,” she said. “He was renowned both for his vision and for his strong belief in transparency and shared governance.”
Jacobs added he was excited to work alongside Shobowale to strengthen the school.
“Tokumbo Shobowale has dedicated his life to helping organizations use their most precious resources (financial, human and technical) to advance the mission of the institution,” he said.
Shobowale shared that his personal goals for the university are aligned with his work at The New School, alluding to how his previous work can be applicable and beneficial to the Fordham community. He noted that one of his accomplishments during his time at The New School was the creation of a set of “foundational information technology systems that allowed staff, faculty and students to access important university resources in the cloud.”
The incoming CFO also helped create and improve a university-wide budget committee at The New School, where he noted that The New School has facilitated “shared governance and information sharing” in regard to university affairs.
“Fordham and The New School are different in many important ways, but I think efforts in both of the areas I mentioned above may be useful at Fordham, as well,” he said.
“We must always be aware of the need to balance compensation and benefits (the university’s largest expense) against tuition, to align on the best outcomes for all involved,”Tokumbo Shobowale, The New School’s executive vice president for business and operations and incoming chief financial officer of Fordham University
During his tenure, months of contract negotiations between unionized adjunct faculty and The New School administration resulted in a December 2022 strike for better pay and improved working conditions. The strike lasted for 25 days, making it the longest part-time faculty strike in the U.S. to date.
Similar to The New School, Fordham has experienced a wave of union contract negotiations over the past year among adjunct faculty, graduate student workers and residential hall assistants at the Rose Hill campus.
Shobowale characterized labor negotiations as difficult, stressing that these negotiations and faculty compensation must be weighed by ensuring that the burden of expenses does not fall on students in the form of increasing tuition costs. He referred to negotiations as a lengthy and sometimes contentious process.
“At Fordham, 90 percent of the university budget comes from student tuition and fees,” he said. “We must always be aware of the need to balance compensation and benefits (the university’s largest expense) against tuition, to align on the best outcomes for all involved.”
Prior to working at The New School, Shobowale attended Stanford University as an undergraduate in 1988 as an economics and public policy major, and later Columbia University, where he earned his masters in international development in 1997. Afterward, he received an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management (MIT) in 1999.
In her announcement, Tetlow applauded Shobowale’s education, noting he had graduated at the top of his class while earning two master’s degrees from MIT and Columbia University.
According to Tetlow’s email, Shobowale has dedicated a large part of his career to public service in New York throughout his collegiate and professional career. He was the director of infrastructure for New York City’s Special Initiative on Rebuilding and Resiliency, which provided relief for long term planning for climate resiliency following Hurricane Sandy. Outside of higher education work, Shobowale also worked in small-scale energy development in less developed and rural areas of Guatemala and Honduras.
The incoming CFO said he looks forward to joining and working alongside the Fordham community.
“I am coming to Fordham because I am excited about joining this vibrant community, and supporting the university mission to meet students where they are and serve the broader community,” he said.
