Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis began her tenure as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the University in November 2018. Along with the Executive Vice President and Provost and the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, she serves as a member of President Ryan’s executive leadership team.

In this role, Davis is the University’s chief administrative, business, and operating officer and is responsible for setting financial policy and overseeing the financial affairs of the University including its schools and the Medical Center. In addition, these key operational and administrative areas report to her, in some cases through a vice president: finance, human resources, capital planning, facilities management, business operations, organizational excellence, emergency management, public safety and security, information technology services and information security, audit, compliance, risk management, state governmental relations, and economic development. Davis serves on the boards of the UVA Physicians Group, the University of Virginia Investment Management Company (UVIMCO), the University of Virginia Foundation, the Foundation of the State Arboretum of Virginia (Blandy Experimental Farm), and the Health System Board (ex officio). She is also a member of UVIMCO's Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility.

Previously, Davis served as Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance at George Mason University for five and a half years. There she provided direction, oversight, and management for Mason financial operations; campus police; safety, emergency & enterprise risk management; auxiliary enterprises; transportation and parking services; human resources and payroll; facilities management, planning, financing and construction; and space management.

Before moving to Virginia in 2013, Davis served the state of Delaware for almost 20 years in such capacities as Cabinet Secretary-Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Deputy Secretary of Education, and Associate Secretary of Education for Policy and Administrative services. In her last five years in Delaware, she was the Vice President for Finance and Administration at the University of Delaware, where she and her colleagues touched on nearly every aspect of the campus, from the redesign of the human resources, finance and payroll systems to revamping the compensation system.

Davis was named International Women’s Forum Fellow in 2008 and has received the Delaware Quality Award for OMB, Council of State Governments Innovation Leader for OMB, and the National Association of State Personnel Officers Award for Healthcare Innovation & New Human Resource Recruitment Systems. She serves as a director of the WSFS Corporation, a Delaware-based bank.

Davis earned both her bachelor’s degree in political science and her master’s degree in policy analysis from Pennsylvania State University. She is married and has two children.