Kenneth C. Gotsch AM 1985

Ken Gotsch, the Vice Chancellor of Finance/CFO for the City Colleges of Chicago, avoids the spotlight. After all, he says, it's typically only when things go wrong that financial officers get any attention. "We're the ones that they're going to throw the rocks at, right? So, in many ways, my not being in the limelight is a good thing because it means things are working pretty well."

Yet Gotsch, who has made a career out of public finance, doesn't shy away from hard work. In fact, over the last decade, he's tackled the heavy lifting of restoring confidence in financial leadership at such institutions as the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the Los Angeles Unified School District, and now the City Colleges of Chicago.

Education wasn't where Gotsch expected to end up. As a student at the Harris School, he was looking to become a budget director at a state budget office or at the federal level in an agency like the GAO. Early on, he interned for the Illinois Bureau of the Budget and worked with the Illinois Economic and Fiscal Commission as a bond analyst before returning to Chicago in 1990 to join the city's department of revenue.

When Gotsch was offered the CFO position at the CPS in 1995, he was reluctant to accept. "I remember thinking that going to work for CPS was not going to look good on a résumé. At the time, it was kind of scandal ridden and plagued with all sorts of management problems," he says. "But sometimes when a career opportunity presents itself, you just have to go with it."

After seven-plus years at CPS, he was offered a chance to work for the financially beleaguered Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest public school system. For Gotsch, this new CFO position was the equivalent of working at a major Fortune 100 company.

The district was facing a steep budget shortfall and, like CPS, there was a lack of credibility plaguing the financial office. "All of the ills of the district were being blamed on the budget office and the CFO," Gotsch says. He worked hard to recruit strong financial executives and to support progress from the existing management team. After only two years, the budgets were balanced and funds stabilized. The district even received its first award for excellence in financial reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association.

In 2005, Gotsch signed on for his next big challenge-overseeing City Colleges' total budget of $474 million. Once more he was hired to establish new confidence in the finance office and the budget numbers. He ties his success to strong leadership, guiding veteran staff in a new direction, and bringing in new blood. "The combination of the institutional knowledge and fresh perspectives is really what helps turn troubled situations around."

Applying his knowledge of public finance to the strategic aims of each educational organization is what really makes his job enjoyable. "It's not just being an excellent number cruncher stuck in a corner somewhere," he says.

Jenn Q. Goddu