June Klein
Palo Alto University VP for Business Affairs and CFO
Palo Alto, CA
Dr. June Rumiko Klein has held executive leadership positions in higher education and high tech for the past two decades. As VP for Business Affairs and CFO at Palo Alto University, Dr. Klein oversees the Business Office, IT/ERP/Website, Human Resources, Facilities, Research and Grants Management. As an officer of the university, she helps lead its financial and management strategy, and establish policies and procedures for effective operations. Dr. Klein is served as a Director of a new undergraduate program in Psychology of Entrepreneurship.
Dr. Klein earned her Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Klein worked as an auditor with Peat Marwick Mitchell and Co. after graduating, and obtained her CPA in the State of California. She later attended the University of California, Berkeley, earning a Master of Business Administration from the Haas School of Business with an emphasis in the management of technology. Dr. Klein completed her doctorate in Educational Leadership and Change with an emphasis in Higher Education Administration at the Fielding Graduate University in 2010. Dr. Klein is also a graduate of the HERS Institute for Women in Higher Education at University of Denver, 2011, the Executive Leadership Academy at UC Berkeley in 2012, and the ACE Spectrum Leadership Program in 2013.
Prior to joining Palo Alto University thirteen years ago, Dr. Klein had held senior management and management consulting positions at ILOG Inc., Tandem Computers, and Ernst & Young before starting her own management consulting firm offering part-time CFO and Controller services to high-tech startups. Dr. Klein has a strong belief in empowerment and the collective wisdom process of teams. By combining policies and procedures, goal setting, accountability for results, training, and a focus on team building, leaders can enable an organization to be successful at implementing change.
Dr. Klein is passionate about diversity and multi-cultural and multi-faith dialogue. In 2005, she was appointed as Chair of a Presidential task force on diversity with the goal of diversifying PAU’s faculty by fall of 2006. She was also Chair of the Diversity and International Committee at the Palo Alto Family YMCA and developed an international relationship with the Taichung YMCA in Taiwan. Dr. Klein was awarded the Palo Alto Family YMCA Andrew Carpendale Award for outstanding international achievement and the Distinguished Service Award for service and leadership in 2008. As incoming-board chair in 2014, Dr. Klein participated as chair of major gifts for the last five years, current chair of the board development committee, and past-CFO, also receiving the award for outstanding fundraiser in 2015. Dr. Klein also serves as a board member, chair of the fundraising committee for the Kiwanis Club of Palo Alto, and was awarded their Distinguished Service Award in 2013 and a Dunlap Fellowship in 2014. This volunteer work inspired her doctorate titled Cultural Intelligence of Students in an Undergraduate Multicultural Studies Course, which argues that intercultural competence is an essential skill for today’s young people in this new flat and diverse world. In November 2012, Dr. Klein was awarded the 2012 Asian American Hero Award for Education by the County of Santa Clara.