GREG RAMIREZ
Chief Financial Officer
Pepperdine University
Greg Ramirez was elevated to CFO of Pepperdine just two months before COVID-19 hit, immediately facing one of the most challenging financial environments in higher education history. With students off campus for nearly a year and a half, the University had to find ways to meet payroll, protect margins, and maintain positive cash flow.
Under Ramirez’s leadership, Pepperdine came through that period, and each period since, without missing budget or conducting any furloughs or pandemic-induced layoffs. The strategic framework he designed prioritized an initial liquidity assessment, scenario planning, and expense optimization. Ramirez’s background is in FP&A rather than public accounting, and accordingly, an analytical mindset shapes how he operates. He built a University-wide forecasting process from scratch that combines automation and predictive analytics with collaborative input from institutional stakeholders – replacing a system that was outdated and entirely backward-looking. The process, a component of a broader enhanced University budget process, has become embedded in how Pepperdine plans and operates, and was formally recognized during the University’s most recent accreditation reaffirmation, where it served as a primary highlight among the accreditor’s institutional commendations. On the capital side, Ramirez led the financial planning for the Mountain, a new student center and sports arena, opening this fall on Pepperdine’s Malibu campus. He structured a bond issuance to help fund the project – the most cost-effective debt transaction in the university’s history – and ensured the project carried no tuition funding. He also managed the financial execution of Pepperdine’s acquisition and renovation of a 300-year-old chateau in Switzerland.
