Willis G. Wang was appointed in 2009 as the University’s first Vice President for Global Operations and in 2011, also became Associate Provost, tasked with creating and overseeing BU Global Programs, a merger of the University’s Office of Global Operations and its International Students and Scholars Office, Study Abroad Office, and Center for English Language and Orientation Programs. He has been responsible for many global initiatives, which have included a dental research school in Dubai, non-profits in India and the UK, and global health operations in Zambia. Willis provides strategic leadership for Global Programs and oversight of its academic and student affairs, budgetary and planning responsibilities, enrollment and revenue growth, and efforts to strengthen international institution capacity building.

As a comprehensive international office, Global Programs consists of over 400 people working for BU year-round to facilitate global mobility and intercultural experiences. Willis oversees a team that annually enrolls more than 2,300 students in BU developed and managed Study Abroad programs and provides immigration support to more than 13,000 international students and over 1000 scholars. Among other activities, this team manages academic centers and offices in 14 cities in 11 countries and provides operational and risk management expertise for BU global teaching, research, and service-learning activities.

As Deputy General Counsel, and after joining BU in 1998, Willis’s legal practice focused on international ventures, corporate transactions, technology transfer, endowment investments, research, and environmental matters. Prior to BU, Willis was in-house counsel at a MIT spin-off technology company that reached a market cap of $1 Billion in the mid-90s and a U.S. EPA enforcement lawyer. He is a graduate of Emory University and Boston College Law School.