James Palmieri, CEO of NBOA Advisory Services, joins the podcast to discuss the evolving relationship between school business offices and technology departments. He shares insights on managing the "double gap" in independent school financial models and emphasizes the importance of early technology involvement in capital projects.

1. NBOA, business leadership for independent schools
2. NBOA Advisory Services, supporting independent schools with consulting and leadership solutions
3. Top Risks for K-12 Charter and Independent Schools, self-reported top risks from members of United Educators, providing liability insurance and risk management solutions to K-12 schools, colleges, and universities
4. ATLIS Leadership Institute, education and networking program designed to prepare and support technology leaders in independent schools
5. Partner Talks: Jeff Shields from NBOA on AI, Governance, and the Power of Collaborative Leadership, episode of Talking Technology with ATLIS

Matt, welcome to Talking technology with ATLIS,

the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for

technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.

We'll hear stories from technology directors and other

special guests from the Independent School community,

and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.

And now please welcome your host, Christina Lewellen,

Hello everyone, and welcome back to

talking technology with ATLIS. I'm Christina Lewellen, the

President and CEO of the Association of technology

leaders in independent schools.

And I am Bill Stites, the Director of

Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New

Jersey,

and I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of

Information Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher

school in Richmond, Virginia.

Bill Hiram, hello. How are you guys doing?

Just grand, fabulous. So you guys probably know, and our

listeners may remember, because I'm sure I mentioned this last

year. I'm not the biggest fan of resolutions, and I think it's

probably because I'm a pretty consistent go to the gym all

year round person, and so, of course, there's lots of

resolutions that happen where my normal gym times get very

crowded in January. I'm not particularly a pessimistic

person or particularly snarky about things most of the time,

but I'm not the biggest fan of resolutions. I do like goal

setting, though we'll be listening to this in 2026 Do

y'all have any goals for the year?

Well, I'm not going to use the goal that Christina

gave me before we went live, which is to be nicer to you,

Hiram,

that was my recommendation,

because that's not interesting. It's not fun. It

doesn't lend for a good podcast. But from a goals perspective, on

a personal note, I am going to be focused on the successful

launch of my oldest into his first job in the beginning of

his first career opportunity outside of school. You've heard

me talk about baseball. My oldest just landed a job with

the Atlanta Braves. He's going to be moving to Florida, so

exciting and getting his life together. And really just want

to put some effort into making sure that that is as successful

as possible because he has got some serious career aspirations

and hoping that it kicks off well and will be focused on

getting him there and getting him settled.

That's pretty good goal. What a great

dad, Hiram. What you got? Do you have any, dare I say,

resolutions or goals for the year?

I just want to share in the joy for Mr. Sean

Stites. I mean, love that boy. He's a fantastic human being,

and I'm thrilled for him. They actually called me when he got

the news to let me know.

Oh no, so this is like an uncle Hiram sort

of situation going on, like he wanted to tell you himself, that

is awesome.

Oh yeah, yeah. It's fun when I'm on the phone

and all of a sudden, Bill will hand the phone to his son. He

goes, Cuevas,

I love it. I love it so much. You know,

there's always those goals that wrap around your kids. I may

have mentioned on the pod that my family has little lake

cottages up in Western New York, and my husband and I were able

to purchase the one right next to my dad's. And I have a goal

to try to not cancel the trips that I have scheduled to go up

and spend some time with my big family, my extended family, very

near my hometown. So I'm trying to get to the lake. Guys, you've

got to hold me accountable this year. Like, I cannot cancel

these trips. I can work up there. Like Richard made sure

that the Wi Fi was very plugged in. So I have no excuse. I just

need to go up there. I'll work during the day. I'll hang out

with the ants at the bonfire at night. Like this needs to be my

goal is

it full season? Like, can you go up there in the

winter?

Okay, yep, it's like a May through November

thing. It's intense. We bought it right at the end of the

season, and I had to go up there, and they, like, blow all

the water out of the pipes and put any freeze in so that it

doesn't freeze over the winter. And I even had to take the

Keurig that I had in the lake house and take it in a tote,

along with other anything that had liquid in it to my dad's

basement. My dad lives about 12 miles away from the lake, and I

stored some stuff up there so that it doesn't freeze in the

cottage over the winter. So pretty intense with the winters

up near Buffalo.

I'll tell you what absolutely that sounds fabulous.

Should we do a pod from my lake property?

Yes, absolutely, okay. We got a field trip. My family would love

you guys. They'd probably make some guest appearances. They're

crazy, so I love it. Well, we have a really exciting guest

with us today, a good friend of ours that we. Spend some time

within the boardroom. Mr. James Palmieri, how are you, sir,

good Christina, thank you and Bill and Hiram for

having me on your pod today.

Really glad to have you. We've been meaning

to have you for a while, and now just seemed like the best time,

because you guys have a lot going on over at NBOA. James,

you are the chief executive officer of the NBOA advisory

services, which is brand new, so we'll talk about that, but

you're also the executive vice president at the bigger

organization at NBOA. You are such a fantastic organization

and partner with ATLIS. We look up to you guys, and we love

working with all of your team at NBOA. We've had Jeff on the pod

before, but this is going to be fun. We're really excited to

talk excited to talk

to you. I really enjoyed engaging with you three

and the full Board and the ATLIS community over the last few

years, and I really value the time I get to spend and learn

with all of you in both in the boardroom and at some of your

professional development events, and it relates two fold, one to

my work at NBOA, for sure, and the fact that we're both serving

this wonderful pre K through 12 independent school community.

But it also kind of fills my bucket in that I'm a lifelong

learner, and I don't consider myself a tech expert, and

therefore I learn from you each time we gather.

I love that we will definitely talk more

about NBOA. But let's start for those who may not know you

because you're not part of the tech leader crowd, that was not

your journey at all. So let's go into your background a little

bit. How long have you been in the Independent School world,

and how did that transition happen to work at NBOA.

Well, my life in education began young. I grew up

in a large family of educators in public school districts

throughout Long Island, New York, where I grew up, and so I

always knew I wanted to work in schools. I initially pursued my

teaching certifications, but I quickly found myself at my first

independent school when I was in graduate school and I got my

first role, actually coaching La Crosse at Kent place school and

summit New Jersey, not far from Bill, really kind of fell in

love with the environment, the old girls environment the

Community. Was fortunate to be offered a position to stay and

quickly moved into business operations such as safety and

security and facilities management, food services,

transportation, but always wanting to keep my foot on the

academic side of the school, so I straddled as best as I could

getting involved with our accreditation work, some

strategic programs and global travel with our students. Just

really had a full experience, in addition to my wife and I living

on campus, which was a day school and not boarding, but was

a great experience to really dive in after eight years there.

I had recently finished up my Edd, my Doctor of Education, and

my dissertation was on startup schools. I was really interested

in the idea of new schools opening and serving unique

purposes in their market, and through that, I was fortunate to

be able to help a couple of founders who were funding the

startup of an all girls high school on the Jersey Shore,

where I live now. I worked for the founders for close to two

years before we opened the doors of Trinity Hall in Monmouth

County with 30 young women, all freshmen. It was like a club the

first year, and then grew the school over five years before I

departed to move to NBOA, which has been a great experience. Now

I'm in year eight of this experience, loving every minute

of the unique work we do to serve a very humble group of

school leaders here our CFOs and their business office staff and

HR, when we get to collaborate outside of the business office

with ATLIS and tech leaders and e 3n and enrollment leaders and

case and development leaders and NAIS and taps leaders for us,

it's modeling the important partnerships that need to occur

on campus. So thank you for your collaboration as always, and

glad to be having this conversation with you all.

That's really cool. I agree. It's so

interesting, how I think that we at the association level do have

this, not only an opportunity, but almost an imperative, to

cooperate and show what is possible and the value that can

come of working together across kind of the traditional silos in

schools. I would imagine that the business office has changed

a lot since you first came into independent schools. What are

some of your observations in that space you started? I mean,

all those years ago as a teacher and La Crosse, but it sounds

like you had your hand on. A lot of different aspects of the

school pretty early in your career, so you've probably seen

it kind of evolve quite a bit over that time, absolutely.

And I don't think that's out without the

support of our associations helping to professionalize and

elevate the role within schools at NBOA, we like to talk about

the years leading up to 2008 nine financial crisis being the

golden age of independent schools. Enrollment was strong.

Financials were strong. Things were looking up, and then we had

this major challenge to overcome. A lot of families

affected by the financial situation. The years to follow

were a little bit rocky, and took some years for schools to

regain their footing and build up, and then the pandemic

happened, and new challenges, definitely, independent schools

rose to the occasion and showed innovation to move instruction

online more swiftly than our peers in the market, and again,

we're in a position of sort of regaining footing through that

pandemic. Enrollments of schools throughout the country. Change,

there was a lot of mobility for families that benefited some

markets and challenged others. The interesting thing too is the

CFO role and responsibilities and importance and altitude

within the school change, and actually their titles changed

along with it. NBOA was founded as the National Business

Officers Association, and that's because they're all all various

titles, but almost none of them are business officer. At this

point, there was a sort of a transition from Business

Manager, sort of behind the scenes bookkeeping type, to

Director of Finance in operations over time to Chief

Financial Officer, and now more and more chief financial and

operating officer, sort of that dual responsibility role, and

even folks earning titles related to, you know, assistant

or associate, head finance and operations. And I'd really just

titles matter only so much at the same time, it shows the

elevation of the role of importance in the admin team

with the board and sort of impacting the long term future

goals of the school,

the CFO versus coo title, that's

something that I understand from my business background, from the

association background. Can you draw the line of distinction in

schools? Do people use those sort of interchangeably? Do

faculty understand the difference? Would tech people

understand those nuances? And again, I'm certain that, just

like tech directors, it probably varies from school to school.

But what are your general observations there in terms of

the distinction between CFO, Chief Financial Officer and COO

Chief Operations Officer?

Yeah, CFO chief financial officer is way more

common in our industry, because primarily the job's

responsibility is to manage and elevate the school's financial

position and the accounting and tax functions under it. However,

the role at schools with significant size and scope is a

really broad portfolio when you consider operations related to

campus master planning, facilities management,

enterprise risk management, the portfolio may include

partnerships with the CIO and tech leader and may include

partnerships with the Chief Human Resources Officer,

director of HR. And so there's times when schools feel the

portfolio has grown too large and therefore aims to make a

divide. I think the jury is still out on what is the best

model. And I wouldn't say there's one best model for every

school. I think it really depends on the school's setup,

its campus, its facilities, and really the skill sets of the

folks in the role. Occasionally the portfolio grows too big and

there's a divide. But for the most part, the CFO, whatever

title that may be, is overseeing both finance and operations,

including HR and so the opportunities for impact in a

school community are large.

I think about our CFO COO and the work that she

does, I'm in awe of what she is able to do, whether it's sitting

through our construction meetings, and what she

understands about we talked about master planning, just

understanding what's involved with that, the conversations

with architects, getting into the risk management, getting

into all the other pieces, and having to understand each of

those distinct areas, and then what everyone needs to know and

to be doing in each of those areas. I think about that, and I

think about the roles that Hiram and I sit in, and how that skill

set develops. And. How you learn those things. And I can tell

you, my degree is in early childhood education. So the

number of business and finance courses I've taken over my

career is a goose egg. Hiram comes from a science background.

I don't want to suppose Hiram, maybe you have taken some

finance courses that I'm just not aware of. But I think one of

the questions that I have, particularly as I talk to people

that are going through the ALI program at ATLIS that are

looking to make that step into the tech director's role, is

understanding what the CFOs that you support do. What do you

think in your estimation, do tech directors need to know

either from their CFOs in order to be successful, or what are

the conversations that we should be having with our CFOs to allow

us to be successful, given the breadth of knowledge that they

contain?

Yeah, I want to attack the first part of that

question, initially, Bill, which is, how did these folks develop

this broad skill set? Right? And the reality is, Independent

School Business Officers don't grow on trees, and they often

don't come up through independent schools, meaning

that, unlike many tech directors that have come up through

education and maybe ed tech and over time, most of our folks

have entered the business officer profession from other

industries. It's typically a third or fourth career for these

folks, and they come in from a variety of ways. It could be for

profit industry jobs. It could be nonprofit, financial

leadership jobs. A lot of times it's accounting and auditing,

some of which then get exposed to independent schools and see

the value in this profession. Oftentimes, we have folks that

maybe come down from college and university roles. And so the

backgrounds of our folks are very diverse, and I don't think

anyone considers themselves an expert in every silo of their

job. And so they lean into board members with specific areas of

expertise. They lean into their network of colleagues in NBOA

and elsewhere, and then they try to staff up accordingly as

needed. To the second part of your question, assuming we'd be

talking about this partnership and relationship, I actually

looked back at a slide deck I used when presenting at the

ATLIS Conference in Atlanta, where I gave among some general

Independent School Business Content, five tips to sort of

strengthen the partnership between the business officer and

the tech director at a school. So maybe we could work through

those a little bit. And I'd love your sort of feedback and banter

regarding where you think schools are generally doing

these things well, and maybe some areas of focus that you

might agree on. I'll start with the first one. I say this from

the lens of a business officer. Business Officers love to be in

the know, like heads of school. They don't like surprises

because they're managing finances, and thus the budget,

but they're also managing a whole lot of risk, and so the

first tip is to get on the same page and to take stock. A couple

of the things I pointed out is what irritates faculty and staff

the most about technology. You need to know what your people

are frustrated with, satisfied by, and work together to try to

create solutions, talking in advance about what were to

happen if there's a targeted cyber attack. What are other

independent schools doing with technology that your school

isn't and sort of be on the same page about some short and long

term goals?

I think that's really interesting,

because obviously understanding so that there's no surprises. I

would say that probably most tech directors feel that way

too, right? Like every human feels that way, like surprises

are problematic, especially in a school when there's so much

going on on the day to day. So that makes a lot of sense.

I would agree with you there, because there's

nothing worse than all of a sudden realizing you now have a

new software application that's been introduced by a department

that you had no idea was now becoming part of your tech

stack, and you're now supposed to support it and provide the

financing for it as well, because it was a decision that

was made in a vacuum. James, I'm fascinated by the realization of

the similarities between the CFO COO and the tech director, and

that no one technically goes to school for these positions, and

that you are a bit of a unicorn as well. You're developing a

great deal of varied skill sets that some of your classes may

have touch base on, and others you really have to develop. Up

that street cred more than anything else. Tell me about the

benefit of relationships in the CFO COO role as it relates to

school culture.

Yes, good question. We talk to our

community of business officers often about the importance of

getting out of the office, and that could mean different

things. I think some business officers love to share their

talents with schools and maybe teach a class or coach a team or

advise a club, and that is wonderful. But simply walking

the campus on a regular basis. You know, dining in the dining

hall, having regular friendly communications with faculty and

staff and other constituents groups really helps to build

their trust and respect, because sort of everyone knows that the

business officer is the primary manager of The schools operating

budget, and even if there's budget responsibilities

appropriately dispersed, the school, the CFO and those

supporting them are relying on those numbers to come together

in a way in which the school can end the year in a positive

position. And so we encourage business officers not to be Dr

No, they get a lot of requests throughout the year about things

that were unbudgeted for new ideas, new programs. And the

reality is, not everything can be supported. But try not to

start from a place of no try to start from a place of learning

more about the ask and having conversations, including others.

Ultimately, not everything can happen at once, but I think by

being out in the community and being clear on the CFOs,

alignment with the school's mission and greater purpose is

key to then being a partner to request for additional funding

versus a yes or no answer, depending on what the bottom

line looks like. And there's another aspect of that, Hiram it

is we really encourage CFOs to skill up in regards to

communicating financials effectively to non financial

colleagues. We feel that when a faculty and staff have a better

understanding of the very challenge business model in

which many of our schools operate as tuition driven

institutions, there's a little bit more of an understanding

regarding what decisions are made and why they're made,

because frankly, these are tough businesses to run, and they're

not strictly businesses. They are school communities with

greater purposes. But when we're employing a few 100 people and

we're serving a few 100 or 1000 students and their families,

there is a business element to the work that we all do to make

sure that our schools aren't only thriving in real time, but

that they are set up for financial sustainability in the

long run.

So just before the podcast, I just came out of one

of our administrative council meetings, we get together weekly

as a group and discuss a variety of topics, and today was was our

CFO the entire time talking about the budget and where we're

going to be with that process, going forward, setting tuition

increases, looking at enrollments, so on and so forth.

And one of the things that she kind of clued us into during

that process was a significant increase in the costs of health

insurance that I think a lot of schools are going to be dealing

with, I can see people shaking their heads Yes. You just talked

about the level of transparency and the level of communication

that needs to go on, and how that impacts the ability to say

yes or to say no. What are the types of things that a CFO may

be tracking with regard to items that impact what a school can

and can't say yes or no to that the average faculty member may

not necessarily be aware of as it impacts the overall ability

for the school to deliver on its mission.

Well, I'm going to quickly address the revenue

side before I jump into the expense side. If we were looking

at a pie chart, three quarters of that pie chart are typically

revenues brought in by tuition and fees, right? So we're highly

tuition dependent organizations. How schools round out

alternative sources of revenue is key to managing tuition

increases and the accessibility and affordability of our

schools, which is a priority, especially in alignment with our

inclusivity goals in terms of serving families at all

socioeconomic levels. So the primary alternative sources of

revenue. Our annual fund giving and annual fund special events

is a significant contributor to the total revenue pie. When

schools are fortunate to have an endowment and be able to utilize

roughly 4% of the return on that endowment to support their

operating budget that helps not every schools in that position,

fortunate schools also may have other investments that can be

used to support operating the last sort of major bucket is the

auxiliary programs in totality, which may include summer

programs, before and after school programs, campus

bookstore, facility rentals, maybe revenue from campus

housing, those types of things that kind of round out. So the

more sort of alternative revenue sources the school has, the less

piece of the pie that tuition and fees take up and really kind

of helps the business model overall. On the expense side,

almost everything that comes in from tuition and fees goes right

out the door to the schools. People, right? We're people

oriented businesses. We serve people through our people so

compensating salaries and benefits for all of our full

time staff, all of our part time staff, all of our coaches and

other stipends is really our number one lever if a school

needed to find savings, it's not going to be through field trips

or basketballs or pencils. It's really going to either be about

people management or facilities management, and I would loop

technology into facilities management in the way that we

are so concerned about our people as we should be right to

attract and retain top talent, that so much of our expense goes

in that direction that we don't hold on enough to care For our

facilities and making sure these big investments we make in new

facilities and renovated facilities have the dollars to

support their ongoing maintenance. And so I think

between people and then facilities, and then we trickle

down to other expenses that are helpful to manage. You know,

being fiscally prudent, but top of the list people

and facilities. So James, what's interesting is you

tickle the memory for me of Jeff shields when he spoke at ATLIS

about the gap. And how often do you all discuss the gap within

the association and the schools to drive the discussion so that

they realize the gap keeps on getting bigger, and what is it

that we have to do in order to prevent that gap? Most

businesses don't run on a gap. This is just such an unusual

environment that education seems to find itself in

Absolutely and you know, business officers know

the gap well, because they manage the gap, right? We

actually, me and a few colleagues, we do more speaking

with non Business Officer groups about the gap to try to educate

more people on this business model challenge that we have. So

trustees, for example, we do a lot of trustee trainings. Heads

of school. Those that have been in the role for a bit certainly

understand. But sometimes new heads, this is new information,

if they've risen up through academic leadership, tech

leaders, enrollment leaders, etc. And what I would say is, I

always refer to the double gap. For me, there's two aspects of

this. The first one comes from the reality that we often don't

charge what it costs to educate each of our students. And this

is a pretty simple calculation. If you take your total operating

budget for the year and divide it by your total enrollment,

you'll have a cost to educate. What's embedded in that total

operating may include depreciation. It may include

debt service. How folks calculate that is dependent on

what their financials look like. But oftentimes, let's just use

round numbers. Let's say that's $40,000 oftentimes, a school

will feel that that number is not palatable to go out to

market with, and so their sticker price becomes 35,000 or

38,000 whatever it might be. And it's not that they don't want to

charge what it costs, but if they look left and right in

their market, they're thinking, well, this school charges that,

this school charges that I'm okay being above that one, we'd

like to be below that one. It's an unfun game to be playing. So

there you go. If you have a $40,000 cost to educate and a

$35,000 sticker price, 5000 times your total enrollment is

your gap. To begin with, that could be pretty significant. And

then you move into mission aligned tuition discounting

financial aid, primarily, about 85% of our discounting. Need

based financial aid also is this benefit and therefore accounted

as an expense, but tuition remission benefits for faculty

and staff children, we would put in the tuition discounting

bucket, and also this sort of nebulous merit based aid, you

know, schools that are using dollars to attract mission

aligned students and families or unique talents, where they have

a little bit of a discretionary fund to provide some

scholarships and merit based aid, which we would say would

have been a bad word in our industry just 10 to 15 years

ago, but is being seen more and more now as we compete for

students and families against other institutions, families

being more open to negotiate and play. Let's make a deal. You

know, I got this package from this school, and also what's

trickling down from colleges and universities with the move

towards professionalizing college athletics. You know, in

some schools, getting the right student or the right athlete or

the right artist at the right time is really important as they

round out their student body. And so between the two gaps, it

becomes something rather large for the school to deal with, and

only so many of them have the annual giving auxiliary

programs, endowment returns to fill that gap. And so that's the

real challenge we're facing.

It's really interesting. I would imagine

that if I were to ask you what some of the most pressing issues

or pressures independent schools are facing right now, I would

imagine that everything you just talked about is in that

category, because it is a pretty significant challenge. But are

there other things that in particular, either faculty or

just employees as a whole, might not be tracking that are issues

that the business office is thinking about.

Yeah, it's funny. We, of course, survey our

members often to try to understand what's top of mind

for them. Also, there's other groups out there, for example,

United educators, which is a large education based insurance

provider for a lot of our schools, they do a top risks

report. Year after year, the number one risk to our schools

is enrollment. If enrollment is where it needs to be, the school

is generally doing well. When enrollment is low, schools are

generally struggling. We're always working towards that

enrollment number. Now, schools can adapt when enrollment is

down, and that means right sizing their people and right

sizing their operation to accommodate that lower number

during a down period, with hopes of getting back on track and

increasing it during the right period. Second is people. I

think it's pretty known that the education profession is becoming

less and less desirable to younger people, and so there's a

real concern regarding a fight for talent both now and 10 years

from now. So we're doing a lot of research, and schools are

doing a lot of thinking about how we compensate our people.

Historically independent schools, as you know, are

slightly lower than public school peers in their market,

which is one problem. The second is we don't utilize our

independence freely, meaning that we don't have to use the

same step and Lane compensation systems as those groups. It's

good for equity purposes, for sure, but essentially it means

that our workforce, our talent, is being compensated based on

strictly years they've been a teacher, years they've been a

teacher at the school and what their degrees attained were

nothing in those three buckets tell you how well a teacher is

performing. So I'm not encouraging folks to move to a

performance based model, but I think those discussions need to

be had additionally benefits, an inflexible benefit system is no

longer serving the various generations that are working in

our schools, and so a lot of our compensation research is about

trying to build some flexibility in the benefit system so that

it's working for people at all stages of life. So you know,

biggest revenue, item enrollment, tuition and fees,

the biggest expense, item people. But of course, data

security and cyber risk is certainly on there. You

mentioned health care premium increases, insurance premiums

have been significant. Our fiscal year is typically July

one through June, 30. With. But health care premium increases

and insurance premium increases are often on a calendar year. So

whereas we may be conservatively budgeting high for those

increases, let's say we're plugging the budget 10%

increase, you could easily get a 15 to 18% increase on the

medical insurance or sort of business risks insurance, and

have to deal with that mid year, which can be a challenge.

It's always just so much to juggle. It's

really interesting. I want to pivot for just a minute, because

one of the things we really wanted to talk to you about is

this really creative and unique thing that NBOA did, and that is

that you launched recently this advisory services component of

the association walk people through that, especially people

who might not be tracking what that even means. But I'm curious

why you guys decided to do that, sort of where it came from. I'm

certain that it bubbled up into some strategy session along the

way. So tell us a little bit about that.

I'll say as things should it really stemmed

from our current strategic framework in place set forth by

the board a few years ago. I will say that plan had elements

that focused on our community, our programs and resources, the

industry at large, and then internally, how to make NBOA

thrive and sustain, and it calls for sort of a big idea. All of

our ideas have to be mission oriented. It stemmed from the

fact that over the years, Jeff myself, our colleagues, heads of

school, would call NBOA during times of need, wanting us to be

more helpful than we were in a position to be. NBOA, the

national nonprofit association, is built to serve the many. Our

memberships have a lot of value, even though folks use those

elements of membership differently, but we weren't

really in a position to help schools through individual

matters, right? And so we would get calls they can't find a

suitable CFO replacement, or their CFO is departing quickly

and they want help finding an interim or they can't afford a

strategic CFO. Is there anyone that's doing part time or

fractional CFO work? A, B, you know, these tools that you put

out are great, but we don't really have the time or

expertise to implement them ourselves. Is there anyone that

could help us? So what we did, after a lot of research,

thought, consideration, discussions with the board, is

launch a subsidiary NBOA advisory services that is wholly

owned by NBOA, the nonprofit association, with hopes that as

the business grows and becomes profitable, it will be an

alternative source of revenue for the association. Having said

that we recognize that this is built out of the association and

so member schools who partner with us on searches and projects

do receive a member discount very related to the project. So

it's an exciting endeavor. Just to give a little bit more

context, I've been fortunate to be asked to lead this endeavor,

and we are not doing this on the backs of NBOA staff who are at

capacity serving the membership. We have recruited a deep team of

recently retired Independent School CFOs who are looking for

this type of part time, fractional interim work. And

among the group of about 15, they have about 300 years of

experience in independent school, CFO roles, so trusted

group on the project based side, I play the role of matchmaker,

depending on the need of the school what the project is. I

try to think the right person on our advisory team who might be

interested in available to support that school. And then

there's the search side, we are running some great CFO executive

searches right now. The thought being that we have the unique

knowledge of the role. We have the network of folks who are

professionals in this industry and maybe looking for career

advancement or geographic change, and we have the ability

to vet CFO candidates for these roles in a way that schools

aren't really equipped to do. Who's equipped to do that? Maybe

board members, and then you have to manage sort of overreach,

right? So to be a partner to the head and the search committee

and include the board with our support, is a process that we're

conducting and really enjoying the work so far, is fun for me,

personally, to be back working more closely with schools on a

one

to one basis. You know, it's early days

yet, but how's everything going? Are schools picking up what

you're putting down?

There was certainly some concern about

that before we launched. We put in a lot of effort to entering

this market, thoughtfully and thankfully, yes, it's resonating

as we anticipated. Our CFO search work is at capacity at

the moment. We are running as many we feel that we could do

well with the infrastructure we have in place. We are working

with schools all over the country, large and small, day

and boarding on projects or part time work to support their

current needs. So the fun part about this is every engagement

call that comes in is a little different, the ask is a little

different, the need is a little different, the area is a little

different, the school mission is a little different, and so being

school people that we are, we try to be as custom with our

approach as possible. And thankfully, it's proving that

the industry was looking for this type of help, even though,

let me say, there are some great folks out there in the industry

that have been doing this work, and those folks will continue to

be busy. The need is greater, right? And so by building an

advisory with a large team of folks who are natural school

financial leaders, it's to make sure that when our member

schools have a need, or even non member schools, that they have

someone to call with an aim to be helpful.

And James, what's interesting to me is, I imagine

you see probably every color of the rainbow type of need in each

of these schools. How often do you spend also educating many of

these schools about the importance of the relationship

between the business office and the technology department as it

relates to the day to day functioning of the school. I

think you've got a unique perspective now being on the

board here at ATLIS, and what have you learned since you've

come on board that you were unaware of that you've been able

to bring back to NBOA?

Actually, Christina wrote an article in

net assets a few years ago called down to the wire, and the

crux of that article was about technology's involvement in

capital projects. So one thing I'll jump into Hiram is the

importance of including the tech director early on in campus

master planning and capital projects. Why? Because your

expertise is super important and needed, both in terms of what

new technologies are available and needed to serve your

community in these new facilities or renovated

facilities, but also, how are those new technologies going to

interface with existing technologies on campus I

mentioned earlier, Business Officers love to be in the Know,

while Business Officers love to save time and love to save

money. And that article that Christina wrote for us put some

data behind the reality that when the tech directors enter

the picture too late, time could be lost as things need to be

rethought, and money could be lost as things need to be

redone. So I think in terms of managing facilities, operations,

major projects. That is a huge one second one I'll call out, is

artificial intelligence in two ways. One is, I think if a

school were to be putting together a small committee to be

thinking about AI adoption, AI policy, AI management within a

school for adults and for students, both of these

individuals should be should have a seat at that table. Tech

clearly may be better understanding the technology and

what's available to help adults do their work more efficiently

and students utilize its capabilities in an appropriate

way, whereas the CFO can certainly bring lenses towards

risk, inherent risk involved, and how it relates to insurance

policies, etc, also the financial investments needed to

adopt AI in the right manner for the school. The third piece, we

acknowledge that a lot of tech directors come up from within,

and so they're managing a lot on their plate. And so I think CFOs

bring a lens of long term vision. So partnering to create

a technology mission statement, needs, assessment, policies,

philosophies, and then sort of creating a long term budget for

the resources that are needed, and that's people, hardware,

software, replacement cycle, etc, so that we're sort of

always managing the tech needs versus managing the expenses as

they come up.

So to your first point, I'm going to put in two

shameless plugs, one for your upcoming conference, and two for

the fact that Vinnie Vrotny, Jim bologna and I are presenting on

the first point that you mentioned, which was involving

it. Earl. On in these large scale projects. We did the

presentation at the ATLIS conference and submitted it

because we thought it would be a good match for NBOA, and we'll

be presenting that in about a month or two down in Orlando.

And looking forward to that, I remember, just to that very

point, we're closing out a large construction project and talking

to the GC about that, and hearing from him as much as the

benefit that it has for the school about involving tech

early, and what he was able to share about schools and what it

cost them to involve them later on in the game is not

insignificant.

Yeah. Conduit. What conduit you don't need? No

conduit.

Isn't that cool. That a topic that

resonated at the ATLIS conference, then also lands its

spot at the NBOA conference. I think that is a perfect example

that speaks to how our organizations collaborate and

our communities collaborate. So that's really cool, James,

before we run out of time. I also know that you were very

sweet and committed to this relationship when you stepped

into a vacant board position on the Atlas board, you sort of got

thrust into the mix of the whole thing. We're so grateful to have

you, as we mentioned earlier in the show, tell us a little bit

about your experience on the Atlas board, and even though you

were kind of chucked into it, you know, we've got open

nominations going on. We're looking for our always looking

for the next crop of board members. So what would you say

about that

my observation of the Atlas board is not unlike

my observation of the NBOA board, in that folks are very

missioned focused, and yet very friendly towards one another. It

is a tight group of individuals that values each other,

professionally and personally through the relationship

developed at ATLIS. My take is that these individuals want that

for all ATLIS members, meaning that trying to create a

community where in what could be a lonely role, a unique role on

campus, that you have a national network of peers that could be

relied on as thought partners to navigate situations and

decisions at your school, but also to network, to learn from,

to grow with. And I think that's just elevated at the board

level, but I don't think that hope and desire for the

membership is lost. That for me, is what sits in every meeting. I

hear you talk about how passionate you are at your

schools and the impact you're having, and the general

consensus I take away, is you want that for all of your peers,

and so a lot of the decision making, a lot of the program

planning to support Christina and her dynamic team really

comes from a place of goodness and sharing, which is a real

positive. I will also share that all of us, Hiram bill, others

involved with the board, you make our work easy because you

are a fantastic Association leader. You have a fantastic

staff. You set us up for success so that our time together is

strategic, generative and efficient. So we appreciate that

very much.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I will second the

motion on the staff. I have a pretty incredible crew. So

James, when we started this pod, as you were joining us, we were

talking about resolutions or goals for 2026 here we sit in

the early part of the year. So tell me a little bit about what

you are excited about for 2026 before we let you go on with

your day.

I would say on the professional front, it is

moving from startup phase of NBOA advisory services to

closing out some really important projects successfully

and aiming to build some infrastructure to allow us to

grow and serve more schools. I think that is the goal. I think

that will also help to create some additional work life

balance in the process. But this isn't my first startup, and I

know what it takes, and I'm totally committed to its

success, because what we're doing is really helping a lot of

individual schools in ways that NBOA, the association, couldn't

do previously. On the personal front, I align with what Bill

shared. I have two daughters. They're 14 and 11. I have an

eighth grader this year, so it's going to be fun to watch her

graduate with her peers and move on to high school and new

beginnings. I think that's the most significant thing in our

household in the year ahead.

I love that. And obviously, you guys know

I've got all the girls, James, so if you need some advice,

you're coming into the thick of it, my friend. But I will say

that at the other end of all the crazy teenage years, Bill and

Hiram and I have adult kids, and last night, we cracked open the

first. Hokito beverage of the season, and so it's so great to

have them back home from college. So you're just really

coming into the best era, for sure. So I want to offer you my

deepest congratulations on NBOA Advisory Services. I'm really

excited for you. I'm really excited for the organization. I

know you're a busy guy right now. So thank you for spending

this time with us and joining us on the pod to tell us a little

bit about everything you're

up to. My pleasure. Thank you all for the

opportunity.

This has been talking technology with ATLIS,

produced by the Association of technology leaders in

independent schools. For more information about Atlas and

Atlas membership, please visit the atlas.org if you enjoyed

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