David Vranicar

David Vranicar is the KU Chief Operating Officer, responsible for operations functions across all KU campuses. Operations in David’s organization includes the following functional units:

• Information Technology and Information Security 
• Facilities Management and Master Planning
• Police and Public Safety
• Parking and Transportation
• KUMC Workday Service Center
• Emergency Management and Business Continuity Planning
• Technology Transfer (KU Center for Technology Commercialization)

David joined KU in 2014 as Chief Financial Officer of KU Medical Center and served in that capacity until the One KU reorganization was announced in 2024 when he assumed the university Chief Operating Officer role. At KUMC, he led Finance, Facilities, Police and Public Safety, Parking, Enterprise Analytics, Emergency Management, and Workday Service Center functions. David was heavily involved in the complex clinical integration initiative to restructure the clinical enterprise on the Medical Center campus, working closely with KUMC leadership and the KU Health System and its affiliates. David brought a fresh perspective to the financial and business functions at KUMC and restructured many financial and business operations of the campus. He recruited many new finance and business leaders to KUMC who have significantly improved campus financial and operational management. David initiated and was the executive driver of the Workday financial and HR system implementation at KUMC in 2019-2020. As a Kauffman Foundation-sponsored consultant to KUMC in 2005-2006, David worked closely with Dr. Roy Jensen, the Director of the KU Cancer Center, to develop the Cancer Center’s first detailed financial and business plan that helped the Cancer Center achieve its first National Cancer Center designation in 2012.

David’s career prior to KU was in the corporate sector. He held leadership roles at multiple companies in the biosciences, software and telecom sectors. He was the President and CEO of the Kansas Bioscience Authority, which committed over $250 million in funding to Kansas companies and universities to enable growth in the biosciences, including over $55 million to KU between 2009 and 2012. Earlier in his career, David held leadership roles at Marion Laboratories, Sprint, Birch Telecom where he was part of the founding leadership team, and MPSI Systems.

David earned an MBA at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and a BS at the University of Texas in Austin.