Ilir Zenku, MITM, PMP, CHCIO

Ilir Zenku is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Healthsystem IT and a valuable member of the Leadership Team in the Office of Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs. He is focused on systems integration, collaborative governance, strategic planning and supporting strategic projects for the organization. He represents Health Affairs in many governance bodies of the university system and university. He is a member of the University of Illinois IT Leadership Team where he has worked in the creation and support of the University Information Security and Privacy Council that proceeded in creating a comprehensive HIPAA program with leadership and governance from existing resources. Ilir is one of the founding supporters and remains involved with the Illinois Campus Cluster high-performance computing service for the university system.

At the university system level, Ilir is also a member in the project prioritization group for university system IT projects and a member of the University Administration IT Leadership Team where he has created many connections among resources and provided guidance in priorities from the healthsystem perspective. Ilir is supporting with his systems architecture expertise and knowledge the university system initiative Identity and Access Management as a voting member of the steering committee. As an active voting chair of the UIC IT Governance Council he has established collaborations between similar resource pools to improve services across the university. Ilir also worked in the establishment and development of the Infrastructure and Security Committee which now gathers representatives from the most IT groups on campus in a collaborative group.

In the UI Health realm, Ilir is actively participating in several leadership teams enabling effective communication among the leadership and verticals of the Health Affairs system IT leaders. In addition to the Health Affairs Leadership Team, Ilir also participates in the UI Health Leadership Team for Analysis and Improvements, Health Sciences Deans Council and Mile Square Leadership Team for Operations and Strategic Planning. He is an active participant in governance structures at UI Health as a voting member of the UI Health Project Appraisal & Prioritization committee and also leads as a chair the UI Health Data Governance Security committee, Health Affairs IT Leadership Team and the group of Health Sciences IT Leaders (Health Affairs Technology Advisory Council). Ilir is leading and supporting Health Affairs strategic projects in the IT and project management expert capacity. He supported the Englewood clinic project, UI Health Plus project, led the Epic systems hardware migration project, supported the Hospital Strategy Group planning and Growth Strategies Planning, led the Enterprise Systems Integration project, participated in the healthsystem ICD-10 Steering Committee, PQRS and DSRIP planning and currently supporting the next regulatory strategic planning MACRA/MIPS. Ilir is also the technology contact in supporting Telehealth initiatives, he is the REACH and DSC contact for Health Affairs and WWT. Ilir also has executive oversight of the WWT IT team and systems which includes the IT infrastructure, Epic Systems, OnBase system and Optum ClaimsManager systems, SharePoint workflow and document management, datawarehouse and analytics services with financial and performance reporting with regular executive reports of IT performance to the WWT President and WWT Board.

Ilir has a Bachelor's of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Tirana, Albania, a Master's degree in IT Management from the Illinois Institute of Technology and Executive Leadership certificate from Booth School of Business at University of Chicago. Ilir holds also several active professional certifications (Certified Systems Engineer from Microsoft participating in the Health User Group, Project Management Professional from Project Management Institute, Certified Healthcare CIO from College of Healthcare Information Management Executives which he also supports as curricula advisor volunteer) and active member at EDUCAUSE, SIM Chicago, HIMSS, ACHE and CHEF. He is a first-generation emigrant from Albania where he designed and led a national project of expanding wireless high-speed Internet access and creation of the Albanian Research Network, worked with international and US organizations to support the Kosova refugees in Balkans and also assisted in the first Internet connections of Kosova after the NATO intervention. He is a recognized leader in the Albanian-American diaspora volunteering in immigrant onboarding activities, teen leadership mentoring, participating in helping Balkans dialogues from Albanian-American perspective, volunteering in supporting performance arts and sports activities organized for the community. He fluently uses the majority of languages in Balkans and lives in Naperville with his wife and two kids.