Carla Ho’a has been appointed as interim Vice President of Administration & Finance, joining Cal Poly Humboldt in the role on Oct. 16. She is taking over the position for Sherie Gordon, who is taking a temporary medical leave of absence from the University. Please keep Sherie in your thoughts during this time.

Ho’a is an experienced leader who came out of retirement after holding various roles at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she most recently served as Vice Chancellor and chief financial officer. She also briefly served as Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo where she oversaw planning and operations, budget, finance and accounting, human resources, campus safety, environmental health and safety, information technology services, and the performing arts center.  

Ho’a has more than two decades of leadership experience in higher education where she has focused on supporting students; diversity, equity and inclusion; and developing successful financial strategies. 

She led efforts to simplify tuition and fee costs, which decreased students’ out-of-pocket costs, and increased enrollment and 4-year graduation rates. Ho’a also oversaw efforts to develop tuition, aid strategies, and structures to attract and retain students, especially financially disadvantaged, first-generation, and underrepresented students.

Ho’a’s experience in developing financial strategies include creating dynamic, long-range financial models to provide roadmaps for enrollment projections, capital planning, cash flow projections, endowments and investments, and financial indicators to assess fiscal health and resilience. She also created financing strategies that supported low-wage employees, expanded employee benefits (tuition benefit, paid parental leave, transit benefit), increased minimum hourly wage, and offered equity- based pay adjustments for faculty and staff.

Ho’a’s dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion includes launching a program focused on increasing awareness of issues of race and institutionalized racism, providing safe spaces and skills to facilitate discussions to identify actions to influence positive change. She also led efforts to develop a $25 million plan for financially sustainable, impactful, and transparent investments to support the campus priorities for diversity, equity, and inclusion.