2024 Business Officer Institute

Prior to the past ten years being a business officer at Ojai Valley School, Robert Cendejas had a twenty-five year career at the C-suite level for a multi-billion non-public national corporation.  He has served in both financial and operational capacities, overseeing risk management, policy and procedures, IT operations and mergers and acquisitions.  During his ten years in the independent school arena, Cendejas has served in all areas of finance and operations including the complete rebuild of twenty thousand square feet of dorm rooms and classrooms.  One of the keys he has learned in the not- for-profit space is the diligence one needs for budgeting, managing cash flow and overseeing expenses.  But the one blessing that Cendejas has gotten from being at an independent school verses the corporate world is that you get to make a difference in students’ lives.

Kelly Garnes-Pages began as an English and history teacher after receiving her bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Virginia and her Ed.M. in administration, planning and social policy from Harvard University. She became the founding history department chair at KIPP NJ, a network of charter schools, where she supervised and coached humanities teachers and wrote the humanities curriculum. Garnes-Pages then earned her MBA at Columbia Business School as a Margaret Greenawalt Scholar and later joined Citibank, where she provided analytics and financial modeling to expand business lines. Since she has served in C-level positions at educational organizations, including Ascend Public Charter Schools, which serves close to 5,500 students and 800 employees. Garnes-Pages is now CFO at the Gill St. Bernard’s School and also serves as a lead consultant of Guided Leadership, a boutique consulting firm that coaches new managers.

Christie Holman has over 20 years of experience as a business officer in independent schools and is completing her 15th year at The Walker School where she serves as the Assistant Head of School for Operations/CFO. Walker is a non-sectarian day school in Marietta, Georgia with enrollment of just under 1,000 students in grades PreK-3 through 12th. During her tenure at Walker, Holman has functioned as the project manager for major construction projects, led her school’s response to the COVID pandemic and is responsible for the finance and operational aspects of the school. During her service, the school created the New Avenues Program, a specialized program for students with dyslexia, added a transportation program and expanded the school offerings to include PreK-3.

Beth Pollard is currently the Chief Financial Officer at Ensworth School in Nashville, TN. Ensworth is a K-12 day school with two campuses and approximately 1,200 students. Previously, Pollard served as Assistant Head of School for Finance and Operations at Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, where she worked for the past sixteen years. Previous experience includes public accounting, banking and insurance. Pollard is currently serving on the NBOA Board as the Treasurer and the MISBO, Mid-South Independent School Business Board.