Klara Jelinkova

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Klara Jelinkova

Klara Jelinkova is Vice President and University Chief Information Officer at Harvard. She is responsible for information technology strategy, policies, and services that support the University's teaching, learning, and research mission, and business operations. Klara is also Chief Information Officer for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and leads Harvard University Information Technology (HUIT), Harvard’s central IT provider that serves more than 50,000 educators, students, researchers, and staff.

Before joining Harvard, Klara held a variety of IT leadership positions in higher education. From 2016 to 2021, she was the Vice President for International Operations and IT and Chief Information Officer at Rice University, where she led in the creation and development of a new IT organization. She was responsible for strategic technology issues ranging from governance, policy, and resource allocation to protocol, organization, and operational issues connected to Rice's global footprint and interest. Under her leadership, Rice University received two CIO 100 Innovation Awards (2018, 2019).

From 2010 to 2015, Klara was Chief Information Officer and Senior Associate Vice President at the University of Chicago, where she oversaw the central IT organization providing common technology services across the University, its global centers, and biological sciences division (including UChicago Medicine). From 2006 to 2010, Klara served as the Assistant Vice President of Shared Services and Infrastructure and interim CISO at Duke University. Prior to arriving at Duke, Klara spent ten years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Klara currently serves on the boards of Internet2 and several advisory boards of Fortune 500 companies. In 2021, Klara was selected as the Houston CIO of the Year. For her work related to identity and access management, she received the Internet2 Leadership Award in 2019.

Klara is an Adjunct Professor in Management at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. She holds a Doctor of Education from Johns Hopkins University, a Master's in Education from Boston University, and a Bachelor's in Economics and Slavic Languages from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.