After nearly five years in Happy Valley, Associate Vice President for Budget Mary Lou Ortiz will exit her role with Penn State on June 3, the university announced Thursday. Ortiz will transition to the University of California, Irvine to serve as the school’s chief financial officer and vice chancellor.

“It has been an enormous privilege to work at Penn State for the past four and a half years,” Ortiz said. “I have had the pleasure of collaborating with stakeholders from across the University on not only budgeting but also strategic planning efforts. In particular, I am proud of the progress we have made as an institution in multiyear resource planning and in the SIMBA implementation. My time at Penn State has prepared me well for my new role at the University of California, Irvine.”

Following a 2021 promotion from university budget officer to her current associate vice president role, Ortiz began overseeing the University Budget Office. In her work with the office, Ortiz spearheaded the development and implementation of Penn State’s budget.

Ortiz was instrumental in the university’s push to modernize the budget process, including a reconfigured five-year cycle. She also served as co-lead for the introduction of SIMBA, which is a financial system for improved reporting and forecasting.

“We are very appreciative of Mary Lou’s contributions to the University’s success over the past four-plus years,” Sara Thorndike, Penn State senior vice president for Finance and Business/treasurer, said. “Thanks to Mary Lou’s leadership we’ve modernized our budgeting processes and financial systems, and navigated the financial challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Before arriving in State College, Ortiz was vice chancellor for finance and administration at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and previously held leadership positions at Princeton and Columbia. Ortiz is currently pursuing a doctorate in higher education from Penn State’s College of Education to add to the three degrees she’s already earned from Columbia.

The university said that further details about Ortiz’s replacement will be shared “in the near future.”