Leon Wyden is vice president of finance and administrative services and chief financial officer at California State University San Marcos in San Marcos, California. In this episode, Wyden joins host Melissa Farley to talk about how his parents’ belief that education is the “golden key” carried him from Detroit’s auto industry into higher education finance, what leading at Howard University, two Ohio institutions, and Frostburg State University taught him about understanding each campus on its own terms, and why he leads a 320-person division by getting out of his office and into its buildings.
“You need to try and solve problems from someone else’s point of view. And that is very, very hard to do.” Wyden picked up that philosophy during his years in manufacturing, and he calls it a talent aspiring CBOs have to develop deliberately rather than one they’re born with. The work, he says, starts with listening. “Sometimes what they’re saying really isn’t what they need. And in order to find that out, you have to listen intently.”
Join us for a conversation with Wyden as he discusses how CSUSM secured more than $90 million in state funding to build affordable student housing, how scenario planning prepares his team for shifting state support and a coming decline in high school graduates, and why he invests in people, not just positions—even when that means encouraging staff to grow somewhere else.
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