Yoke San Reynolds, who has served as vice president for financial affairs and university controller at Cornell University for the past three years and who has brought substantial changes to the university's financial function, will leave Cornell in May to become the University of Virginia's vice president for finance.

In that newly created post, she will oversee all of U.Va.'s primary financial operations.

"I'm really sorry to be leaving Cornell," she said. "I've had challenges and opportunities here to make a real difference, and developed personal relationships with many people. However, the opportunity to become the chief business officer at the No. 1 public institution in the country is a wonderful professional advancement and an opportunity I simply could not pass up."

Harold D. Craft, Cornell vice president for administration and chief financial officer, said he is pleased that Reynolds has this opportunity to advance professionally. "The University of Virginia could not have chosen a better or more skilled person," he said, adding, "as wonderful as this news is for Yoke San, it is sad news for Cornell. She has been a great senior leader at this university, has contributed extraordinarily and has been a wonderful mentor for her staff and colleagues across campus."

Reynolds came to Cornell as university controller in 1991 from the State University of New York at Albany, where she was assistant vice president for financial management and director of budget. She was named associate vice president in 1996 and vice president in 1998. At Cornell, she has overseen the merger of financial operations for the endowed and statutory colleges. She instituted a divisional program called TOPS – "Transforming our Organization and our People" – that helped manage the merger and created a greater customer service orientation in the relationship between the Division of Financial Affairs and outlying departments.

Reynolds is credited with transforming the culture and values of the Division of Financial Affairs from an "enforcement" to a collaborative style, both within the division and between it and other university departments. She professionalized the division's workforce and financial staff across campus through training programs. She re-engineered internal processes and the university's financial policies and processes, streamlining operations and eliminating unnecessary or duplicative activities.

The successful implementation of a university procurement card program dramatically reduced the processing of purchase orders. She also guided the establishment of a preferred-supplier program that resulted in projected base budget savings for university departments of $6.9 million per year, particularly in computer equipment.

Critical new computer technologies were put into place during Reynolds' tenure. She served as co-executive sponsor (with Vice President for Human Resources Mary Opperman) for the implementation of the PeopleSoft Human Resource/Payroll System.

Among Reynolds' most significant achievements was her negotiation with the federal government in the area of federal research indirect costs.

"When I arrived at Cornell in 1991, there were open unresolved indirect cost submissions for six back-years," she said. "In the last nine years, I achieved settlement on all open years with federal negotiators, settling 18 years of rates without negative publicity, legal difficulties or large cash penalties. In the final negotiation with the Office of Naval Research, we were able to avoid returning funds to the federal government, as prescribed by the federal auditors. The savings were $5.1 million and $3.7 million respectively of endowed and statutory funds. In the last negotiation, over benefit recovery rates, we successfully obtained a creative settlement, which released $16 million for Cornell's reallocation."

Reynolds implemented and directed Cornell's university policy process, which is considered a model system by other universities.

Reynolds' husband, Bruce L. Reynolds, a member of the economics faculty at Union College in Schenectady, will join the U.Va. faculty in August, with joint appointments in the new International Residential College and the McIntire School of Commerce.