Jena Zangs is the first, and currently only, chief data and AI officer in Minnesota higher education, according to University of St. Thomas research. At the St. Paul-based university since 2019, she is now pioneering enterprise data and AI leadership at scale. She implemented the University of St. Thomas’ first enterprise-wide data strategy, placing the institution among the top 15% of higher education institutions nationwide for modernized data infrastructure and responsible AI. Today, St. Thomas is using AI to deliver personalized student experiences while eliminating an estimated 1,000-plus manual hours of data analysis and integration efforts. In the past year, her team centralized university data domains, reducing storage and infrastructure costs by 96%.