As Cathy Bates enters her retirement, Vantage celebrates her remarkable career and the tremendous impact she has had on the higher education IT community, her Vantage colleagues, and beyond. Cathy’s legacy is one of community-building and creating environments where everyone can do their best work.
Over a career spanning higher education IT leadership, consulting, and countless community partnerships, Cathy has consistently contributed her creative thinking, her passion for mentorship and leadership development, and her deep knowledge of how to build successful and effective teams.
“Cathy has shown unending support for and faith in our team members,” said Sarah Norwood, Senior Consultant at Vantage. “We are all better at what we do thanks to her leadership!”
Before Cathy begins the next step in her journey, our team reflected on her career and the “pearls of wisdom” that have made her a giant in higher education IT.
Servant Leadership
Early in her career, Cathy established herself as a servant leader. She says when she started thinking about who she wanted to be as a leader, she focused on ways that she could explore everyone’s strengths and help them bring their best selves to the work. Rather than lead by mandate, she set “goals” (the unified vision for what they wanted to achieve) and “guardrails” (shared principles for how to work and make decisions) and then allowed her teams to flourish by finding their own way to success.
Cathy acknowledges that this approach can be uncomfortable. Especially for new leaders, relinquishing control in this manner can feel scary. But Cathy learned early that when she created space for her teams to find answers best suited to their unique circumstances, more innovative and sustainable solutions followed.
“From day one, Cathy made it clear that she values people not just through her words, but through her actions,” said Chris Moody, Finance Manager at Vantage. “She is a thoughtful leader, and that care shows in how she leads and how she shows up for others.”
Shaping IT in Higher Education
Cathy’s influence is seen and felt throughout our community. A long-time active member of and contributor to EDUCAUSE, Cathy’s fingerprints are all over the many of the resources this community relies on and uses every day.
In 2017, Cathy authored the EDUCAUSE IT Governance Toolkit, an inclusive, institution-wide approach that looks at governance across the full IT services portfolio. Years later, the toolkit continues to be widely used, revisited, and adopted by institutions navigating complex governance challenges.
Amidst the COVID pandemic in 2020, Cathy also helped establish the Vantage Leadership Lounge, a free mentorship program that offers rising higher ed IT leaders support and professional development opportunities with mentors who are current or past executive-level professionals. The program continues to be very popular, with demand beyond capacity.
From CIO to Mentor and Beyond
When Cathy stepped into the CIO role at Appalachian State University, she had served as a CISO, had led across numerous IT functions, and was comfortable engaging the president, provosts, and executive leadership. Since then, she’s mentored many IT leaders as they’ve taken their own steps into the C-suite.
As both a CIO and as a consultant, Cathy has demonstrated what it takes to become and thrive as a CIO.
When she first entered the role, it wasn’t the new responsibilities that surprised her but the importance and absolute necessity of building a strong IT leadership team. She quickly recognized that developing strong directors into confident leaders was essential to achieving strategic technology advances for the institution. Knowing how to develop leaders across a team is a skill she’s shared widely with peers and mentees.
“Cathy’s impact will be felt in the higher education and information technology communities for years to come,” said Sharon Pitt, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at Virginia Tech. “She is a model of what it means to truly be a partner.”
Building the Strategic Team at Vantage
Cathy’s knack for team development was a huge asset that she brought to Vantage. Alongside Geoff Tritsch and Jon Young, she helped shape the Strategic Team: expanding our services, helping us win early projects, and demonstrating our value to clients. Within a year of joining Vantage, she was tapped to lead the team.
Cathy was instrumental in bringing Joanna Grama (who would later become a Senior Principal and Partner at Vantage) on board. Together, they built services informed by Cathy’s CIO experience and Joanna’s information security expertise as well as their shared backgrounds within the EDUCAUSE community and knowledge of where higher ed IT leaders needed support.
Cathy also knows a thing or two about succession planning, and she’s done incredible work in the background to set the team up for long-term success. She continued to support and mentor team members, including Vice President and current Strategic Team Lead, Shannon Dunn. She’s nurtured Vantage’s strong partnership with EDUCAUSE and has continued to think innovatively about our service offerings.
“Cathy has guided the team and individual team members with creativity, empathy, and a lot of enthusiasm,” said Shannon Dunn.
Cathy’s long-term hope for the Strategic Team is that it constantly pays attention to the most critical needs in higher education IT and that we ensure our services meet those needs.
She is proud of the team’s strong foundation of top-notch expertise and integrity, a commitment to using data to tell the client’s story, and the ability to ensure clients see themselves and their best path forward in the work we do for them.
Being a forward-thinker, she knows it’s crucial that we continue listening to our colleagues in the space and respond accordingly.
Parting Advice
We couldn’t let Cathy say goodbye without asking that she impart some wisdom beforehand. Here’s what she had to share:
- Start by listening. This lesson applies to all of life, but especially to the work we do at Vantage. “Instead of looking for the next opportunity to insert what you’re thinking, stop and think about the person sitting across from you and what they need,” said Cathy.
- Remember our shared humanity. Even in tough conversations, you should never breach the integrity of another person or malign their integrity. “Your counterpart should walk away knowing that you still value them as a person.”
She believes following these two simple lessons will help all of us live our lives in a “more human way.”
Cathy hopes that she’s helped the people she’s worked with explore new ideas and grow. But more importantly, she hopes they remember what it was like to have someone in their corner, fostering their growth, and that they are inspired to do the same for the next generation of higher ed IT leaders. For her, that spirit of paying it forward is what makes working in this profession so rewarding.
“Thank you, Cathy, for everything you’ve done for the firm,” said Phil Crompton, Senior Principal and Partner. “Thank you for your leadership and guidance, and thank you for leaving Vantage in a better place than it was when you joined us.”
What’s Next
In retirement, Cathy is looking forward to rediscovering learning from a new angle. She’s already enrolled in a botany course, and she says she is eager to better understand the science behind her love of gardening and herbs. She’s excited to spend more time crafting, creating, and spending time with her husband, Bill. (He’s also excited to claim more of her time.)