2025 Organizational Culture Award Recipient

Liv Gjestvang

Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Denison University

The 2025 EDUCAUSE Organizational Culture Award recognizes Liv Gjestvang for demonstrating and promoting the responsibility of institutions and individuals to ensure that all voices are heard and all people are welcome, nourishing cultures that enable everyone to thrive.

Liv Gjestvang is Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Denison University, where she leads IT strategy with a focus on digital transformation and fostering a strong, positive team culture. She believes in putting people at the center of innovation and has championed inclusive, values-driven change throughout her career, creating workplaces where people feel heard, empowered, and inspired to grow. Her leadership blends vision with empathy, building cultures of trust, collaboration and meaningful impact. A leader in AI innovation in higher education, Liv has hosted two national summits on AI and helped shape Denison’s approach to pedagogical innovation, student career readiness, and operational effectiveness through emerging tech.

Before joining Denison, Liv was part of Amazon Web Services’ Higher Education Strategy team, where she supported institutional leaders in driving digital transformation. She spent fifteen years at Ohio State University, including eight years as Associate Vice President for Learning Technology. There, she led the Digital Flagship initiative, providing iPads and coding curriculum to undergraduates, and launched the Affordable Learning Exchange, which saved students over $50 million in course content. She also coauthored College Ready Ohio, a $13.5 million grant supporting college readiness, and collaborated with Apple to develop Ohio State: Wellness, a mental health and wellness app. Her leadership of Ohio State’s Digital First initiative earned national recognition, including the New Media Consortium’s Center for Excellence Award and Apple’s Distinguished Program designation in 2015 and 2019.

Liv has served as faculty for the EDUCAUSE Learning Technology Leadership Institute, the CAUDIT Leadership Institute in Australia and New Zealand, and the EDUCAUSE New Managers Institute. She has contributed to the EDUCAUSE Top 10 Issues Panel and the 2024 Partnership Summit and currently chairs the 2025 Annual Conference Programming Committee. She previously chaired the Big Ten Learning Technology Leaders group and has received several national awards, including the 2017 EDUCAUSE Rising Star Award, the 2022 AWS Think Big recognition, and the 2024 ORBIE Award for Ohio CIO of the Year. At Ohio State, she received the Distinguished Staff Award and the Glass Breakers Award from the President and Provost’s Council on Women.

She has written and presented internationally on digital equity, social justice, college affordability, and transformative leadership, with her work cited in publications such as Studies in Art Education and Interrupting Hate: Homophobia in Schools and What Literacy Can Do About It. Liv’s TED talk is featured on TED.com, and she recently became a certified coach through the International Coaching Federation. She’s excited to continue supporting colleagues in their leadership and professional journeys through this new lens. Liv lives in Ohio with her partner and their two children. She loves reading, hiking, swimming, and takeout.

This EDUCAUSE Award is sponsored by Moran Technology Consulting, Mission Partner.