Our Leadership

Chief Technology Officer

Laura has more than 25 years of executive leadership experience in information management. Before accepting her role at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Bagus was the Vice President and Associate Chief Information Officer for Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She also served as Executive Director of Information Technology for University of Chicago Medicine, and as the Chief Technology Officer for Edward Hospital. 

While working at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Laura developed an enterprise architecture portfolio that helped drive improvements to and expansion of the organization’s business capabilities. Noteworthy improvements include the implementation of a service delivery team, improved collaboration with clinical stakeholders, and modernization of enterprise technologies. She also directed all aspects of IT expansion including deployment for satellites, new departments, and new practices. 

Laura has a robust record of developing and executing strategic plans to improve organizational operations. She strives to provide agility and business value in support of an enterprise ecosystem that supports clinicians in providing personalized healthcare across the region.  
 

Executive Director, Program Management Office 

Cheryl oversees VUMC IT’s program management office (PMO). In this role, she ensures alignment of the department’s work with the larger organizational strategy of VUMC, as well as adherence to expectations around value, costs and timelines. Cheryl has primary responsibility for deploying effective methods and practices around provisioning IT solutions and improving the maturity of program and project management across the Medical Center. 

Cheryl has more than 20 years of experience in IT. Before joining VUMC in 2019, she held executive leadership positions at major consulting and healthcare firms. In these roles, Cheryl provided leadership and direction to technology implementation teams and hospital executives who were transitioning to electronic medical records and other healthcare software.  

Cheryl holds a master’s degree in Information Technology from the University of North Texas and has multiple certifications, including PMP, CPHIMS, ITIL, COBIT and CGEIT.

Executive Director, Enterprise Product Management

Jason joined VUMC IT in 2019 and leads the strategic and tactical direction for the Medical Center’s administrative, financial, and collaborative enterprise products. He has more than 20 years of experience in various IT roles of increasing responsibility within world-renowned academic medical centers. In addition to his role with VUMC, Jason has overseen such critical functions as data center operations, networking, client services, application management and software development.

A former member of the United States Air Force, Jason received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Science, with a concentration in Business Systems, from the University of South Alabama and an MBA from Christian's Brothers University. He also earned a Healthcare CIO certification from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, and holds additional certifications in project management and other technical specialties. 

Executive Director, Infrastructure & Operations

Esfandiar is responsible for VUMC’s information technology infrastructure and operations, leading groups that design, maintain and operate the enterprise IT infrastructure. In this capacity, he oversees the activities of data center, hosting, end user computing, network services, IT service management, audio/visual and telemedicine groups. 

Esfandiar has nearly 30 years of experience in IT leadership. Prior to his current role with the Medical Center, Esfandiar served as Assistant Vice Chancellor of Information Technology at Vanderbilt University. He joined the university in 1985, serving in multiple roles, including chief operating officer for information technology services and director of application hosting. In his career, he has directed the installation of several generations of campus networks and been at the forefront of data center modernization projects that support large-scale research computing.            

He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and Computer Science, as well as a master's degree in Computer Science, both from Steven Institute of Technology.

Executive Director, Business Operations

In her role, Trisha is responsible for a range of functions that support VUMC IT’s business operations, including administration, financial analysis and budgeting, communications, procurement and contracting, and capacity management. Prior to her current role, she directed strategy for the Medical Center’s IT projects.

Trisha joined VUMC’s HR department in 2013, overseeing data and processes for its nearly 25,000 employees. She was responsible for the Medical Center’s HR systems, including Oracle’s Peoplesoft and Taleo solutions, as well as SAP’s performance management and business intelligence reporting tools.  

Trisha has more than 25 years of experience, many of them spent in healthcare. Prior to joining VUMC, she spent more than eight years with Cigna in various operational and analytical roles. 

Trisha holds a B.S. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 

Executive Director of Research IT

Chris Marko is the Executive Director of Research IT for VUMC. In this role, he is responsible for promoting IT advancements across technical disciplines including advanced scientific computing, bioinformatics, high performance computing (HPC), and translational research.

Before joining VUMC, Chris was the Senior Director of IT Infrastructure and Operations at The Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, a leading biomedical and genomic research organization.  He also previously served as the Director of Infrastructure Engineering at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and held technical leadership positions at Litle & Co, IBM, and others.

Chris holds a master's degree of Business Administration in IT Management from Western Governors University, as well as undergraduate degrees in Computer Forensics from Champlain College and Computer Science from NH Technical College.  He has also earned several post-graduate certificates including a Certificate of Specialization in Data Science & Innovation from Harvard University, and a Certificate of Leadership & Innovation from MIT.

Executive Director of ERP Solutions

Aldrea Vertison is the Executive Director of ERP Solutions. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville before joining Vanderbilt in January 2000 as an application developer. Aldrea’s career has focused around the support and optimization of administrative systems, and in April 2023, she served as the technical lead for the successful implementation of Workday.

In her current role, Aldrea leads four teams that support Workday, Tecsys, and other systems. The Workday IT Coordination Team governs Workday enhancements and releases, while the VUMC IT BI and Data Analytics team handles Workday reports, Tableau, Business Objects, and BI Cognos. The Workday Operations Team is responsible for security, integration, and application support and the Supply Chain IT team manages systems that track medical supplies and implants at Vanderbilt Health including procurement, case documentation, and financial accounting.