California Lutheran University has hired Brian Fahnestock to be its Interim Vice President for Administration and Finance. According to an email from the Office of the President, Fahnestock began his appointment on Jan. 6th, 2025 as the university began the search for a permanent chief financial officer.
Fahnestock earned his undergraduate degree in political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign before going on to earn a masterโs in administration at the Naval Postgraduate School.
According to his Linkedin, Fahnestock brings to Cal Lutheran over four decades of financial experience, with the last ten being spent across five higher education institutions, primarily in various interim roles.
โI have been fortunate to spend most of the last 40 years helping organizations manage their finances. I have worked in that capacity for the Navy, in the private sector, and in local government. I have also worked for several colleges and universities. It is my profession. Efficient, transparent financial operations are my passion,โ Fahnestock said in an email interview.
Fahnestock said he thrives in group settings and working with others, and that working in finance gives him a great opportunity to do so. While Fahnestock has only worked at Cal Lutheran for about seven weeks, he said he has already been very impressed by what heโs seen from the faculty.
โI enjoy working with others and when you help manage an institutionโs finances, you get to meet everyone. My approach is to empower others in this journey and to support them however I can. I have learned already that staff here is very capable โ Hard working professionals who care about their job and the University. Clear understanding of finances is essential for everyone. That is where I come in,โ Fahnestock said in an email interview.
Fahnestock said his approach to the universityโs financial situation will be to emphasize balance and relativity, especially between what comes in and out of the university.
โI will approach Cal Lutheranโs finances the only way I know how. I will do my best. I will try to fully understand the situation, share that information with leadership and then work with the campus community to figure out a way forward. We need to align our spending for the programs we offer with the money we raise each year. There are obviously many ways to do that; I will help find a combination of activities that work,โ Fahnestock said in an email interview.
Fahnestock said his ultimate goal in his time at Cal Lutheran is to make sure cohesion across departments is at a high and to make sure everyone is on the same page, especially regarding finances.
โI will consider my tenure here to be a success if we can collectively recognize the financial realities for CLU in the unsettled world around us and what is possible for our institution. We all need to be rowing in the same direction organizationally for it to work. That will be my goal for the time I am here โ however long that turns out to be,โ Fahnestock said in an email interview.
Vice President of University Advancement Regina Biddings-Muro said that Fahnestock brings a lot of joy to the university.
โHe laughs. Heโs a good sport. Iโve never seen him have a rough day. He seems to be just very easygoing, very easy to talk to,โ Biddings-Muro said.
Biddings-Muro said Fahnestock excels at taking complicated material and translating it into digestible language.
โI believe that in his realm of work, you know, can get very technical and complex very quickly, but I believe that one of his gifts, one of his many gifts, is his ability to take the complex and make it easy for anybody to understand. To me, thatโs the real measure of somebody who knows what theyโre doing,โ Biddings-Muro said.
Matthew Ward, Cal Lutheranโs vice president for enrollment management and student success, said he was immediately impressed by Fahnestock, saying he is one of the most widely qualified additions he has seen, especially on the financial side.
โHe came in, bringing a level of wisdom about college finance that I havenโt experienced here at Cal Lu. Never have we had someone who has that kind of breadth of knowledge across the industry,โ Ward said.
Ward said despite his recent start, Fahnestock has already made a noticeable impact.
โHeโs already demonstrated how best practices and objective feedback on how we do things, you know, can have an immediate impact on how weโre looking at our dollars,โ Ward said.
Ward said he will work a lot with Fahnestock in an effort to better the universityโs financial situation, with much emphasis being put on efficient spending university-wide.
โBrian would probably be the first to say itโs not necessarily his issue to solve, but his issue to collaborate with other units in the university,โ Ward said. โWhen youโre dealing with our value proposition and the performance of the university across all of its component parts, you need a great financial leader to look at all those parts and evaluate them from a financial perspective, and then to collaborate with all of us.โ
