Longtime Tufts executive joins Brandeis senior staff

Steven S. Manos is a manager, mediator and health-care activist

Photos/Alonso Nichols/Tufts University

Steven S. Manos

Steven S. Manos, who is credited with dramatically improving and stabilizing the finances and management of Tufts University during 26 years as executive vice president there, has been appointed senior vice president and chief operating officer of Brandeis, President Fred Lawrence announced this morning.

Manos was recruited to Brandeis by Provost Steve A.N. Goldstein, to whom, Manos said, he will be “joined at the hip” in efforts to improve the budgeting, administrative and financial functions that Manos will oversee.

Manos, who will report to President Lawrence, also will have responsibility for the physical plant and human resources, and be a member of the president’s cabinet and senior management team.

“Steve’s wealth of experience and record of accomplishment will be tremendous assets to Brandeis as we begin implementing our vision for the future,” Lawrence said. “We are fortunate to have him join our team.”

Goldstein said Manos “has a national reputation for creativity and financial acumen. He will strengthen our existing financial and administrative operations as we concurrently work to complete the strategic plan. Having these operations be effective and efficient are key to our long-term success.”

Manos said he is looking forward to working with the Brandeis faculty and staff to strengthen the university.

“Success to me does not just mean a good bottom line,” Manos said. “It means working with academic colleagues to create a stronger faculty and to provide a better education for the students.”

Manos retired in September 2007 after twenty-six years on the job, and says that seeing Tufts develop a solid financial base and using it to achieve its academic goals were his proudest accomplishments. “Of course,” he is quick to add, “many hands made that possible.”

Prior to joining Tufts, Manos was assistant executive director of the American Bar Association in Chicago and senior administrator of the department of psychiatry of New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center in New York City. He also worked as director of management systems for the Manhattan District Attorney, as chief executive officer of the nonprofit Manhattan Bowery Project, which provides health services and support to homeless alcoholics, and as a corporate attorney on Wall Street.

Since his retirement from Tufts, Manos has served as a trustee of the Cambridge Health Alliance, a health-care system that covers Cambridge, Somerville, and other Boston-area communities, and has been active as a mediator, volunteering in the Massachusetts district courts to help resolve landlord-tenant disputes and small-claims cases, among others. Manos also serves as president of the Community Dispute Settlement Center, a nonprofit organization that provides affordable mediation services and trains mediators.

Most recently, he has worked as a consultant at Wheaton College, assisting the president there in developing a five-year financial plan.

Manos earned a B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1962, a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1968 and an M.P.A. from New York University in 1974.