Monday, February 16

UCLA’s vice chancellor to leave position to join organization for arts


Steve Olsen, UCLA vice chancellor and chief financial officer, will be leaving in June to join the J. Paul Getty Trust. (courtesy of UCLA newsroom)


A senior UCLA administrator will be leaving his position next year to take up a new job in an art and cultural organization.

Steve Olsen, vice chancellor and chief financial officer, will be leaving UCLA on June 30, 2018 to join the J. Paul Getty Trust as its next vice president, chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Chancellor Gene Block announced Monday.

Olsen, who has served as a vice chancellor at UCLA since 1999, manages the campus’ $7.5 billion operating budget. He oversaw the financing and planning for various capital projects, including the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center and the Mo Ostin Basketball Center.

Olsen also negotiated UCLA’s 2015 purchase of the Occidental Petroleum building, a 16-story office building that houses the Hammer Museum on the corner of Westwood and Wilshire boulevards.

Block said in a message to faculty and administrators that he and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh plan to form a search advisory committee to appoint Olsen’s successor.

Bharanidaran was the News editor from 2017-2018. He was previously a news reporter for the campus politics beat, covering student government and the UCLA administration.


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