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Finance Catatlyst: Insight at the Speed of Discovery
As a global leader in research, creativity, and technological advancement, Carnegie Mellon University depends on financial systems and processes that empower our community to pursue its mission with clarity, confidence, and speed. The multi-year Finance Catalyst project is the activation point for that future: ultimately delivering a modern, unified financial ecosystem designed to enable insight at the speed of discovery and accelerate CMU’s impact on the world.
The Finance Catalyst project will unify and elevate CMU’s financial processes through an integrated, scalable, and intelligent Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform. By streamlining how financial information flows across colleges, units, and campuses, the project will enable us to spend less time navigating financial systems and processes and more time advancing discovery, teaching, and impact.
Supporting Innovation at the Speed of Discovery
This initiative will shift CMU from historical reporting to predictive, real-time intelligence, enabling decision-making and insight at the speed of discovery. The Finance Catalyst project will activate new ways of working by streamlining workflows, reducing manual effort, and creating a shared foundation that strengthens financial stewardship across the university.
Simplicity That Accelerates Impact
At the heart of the Finance Catalyst project is a simple idea: design financial processes that are intuitive and consistent so finance can be the invisible advantage behind every breakthrough. By reducing complexity and elevating insight, the project will enable smarter, faster ways of working across the university. Faculty and staff can focus their attention on what matters most: discovery, teaching, and impact.
What This Means for the CMU Community
The Finance Catalyst project will deliver a modern financial experience that empowers everyone who interacts with CMU’s systems to make business decisions that are driven by real-time, data-driven information. We will all benefit from intuitive, seamless financial interactions that can help us accomplish our goals.
Imagine:
- A holistic finance transformation that will reimagine operating and service delivery models, roles, decision rights, and outcomes, all enabled by a modern ERP
- Adopting delivered ERP capabilities as the norm, ensuring a cleaner, more maintainable system for the future
- A system that uses robust compliance and controls by design, automating audit trails and proactive risk management
- Real-time reporting and well-informed decision-making
- Streamlined, standardized processes that seamlessly integrate with critical internal and external systems and emerging technologies such as automation and AI
- A system designed to support continuous learning and workforce upskilling, as well as university growth, including new programs, degree offerings, and global locations.
These improvements will allow our community to focus on what matters most: advancing discovery, teaching, and impact with systems that operate at the speed of discovery.
The Invisible Advantage Behind Every Breakthrough
By intentionally designing for simplicity and clarity, the Finance Catalyst project will redirect expertise toward financial analysis and guidance, becoming the quiet force that accelerates research, supports teaching, and strengthens CMU’s ability to make an impact.
The Finance Catalyst project is more than a financial system replacement. It is an activation of CMU’s future—empowering people, unifying processes, and enabling a modern way of working that advances the university’s mission at the speed of discovery.
How We’ll Get There: Project Phases and Timeline
Finance Catalyst is an ambitious, multi-year project that will be accomplished in three phases, each with its own timeline and deliverables.
Phase/Deliverables |
Key Dates |
Status |
|
Phase 1: Discovery
|
March 2026 - December 2026 |
In process |
|
Phase 2: Mobilize
|
2027-2028 |
Future Phase |
|
Phase 3: Implement
|
2028-2031 |
Future Phase |
Contact
financecatalyst@andrew.cmu.eduExecutive Leadership
Executive Leadership Council
The Executive Leadership Council will provide overall oversight of the project and are tasked with making critical project decisions.- Charles A. Kennedy, Chief Investment Officer and Interim Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer (effective June 1, 2026)
- Stan Waddell, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
Core Project Team
Core Project Team
The core Project Team manages day-to-day tasks including setting strategic direction, validating requirements and outcomes, preparing project updates, and drafting project communications.
- Carrie Nelson, Associate VP for Finance and Controller (Functional Project Lead)
- Matt Keating, Assistant Vice President, Administrative Enterprise Applications, Computing Services (Technical Project Lead)
- Derek Sommer, Director, Finance Systems (Technical Team Lead)
- Amanda Perkins, Director, Finance Training and Communications (Organizational Change Management Lead)
- Manuel Sevilla, Director, Strategy & Transformation for Enterprise Platforms (Project Manager)
- Meg Hillmann, Project Coordinator
Engagement Metrics (updated June 2026)
Engaging with the Finance Catalyst Project
Your experience with CMU’s current financial processes is essential to shaping what comes next. Those who work with these systems every day understand what’s working, what’s not, and what it will take to build something better.
Catalyzing Success
Throughout this project, we will partner closely with the financial community—through visioning sessions, vendor evaluations, system demonstrations, user acceptance testing, training, and more. As the work progresses, we’ll keep these numbers growing and share updates along the way.
We encourage you to contribute your insights: ask questions, share ideas, identify opportunities for improvement, participate in project activities, or stay connected through project updates. Your voice will help activate a modern financial ecosystem that truly supports innovation at the speed of discovery. Every contribution strengthens our collective effort to build a modern financial ecosystem that empowers CMU to deliver insight when it matters most.
We welcome your feedback and inquiries at financecatalyst@andrew.cmu.edu.