Chris Lowery is Senior Vice President, Workforce Alignment, of Ivy Tech Community College. He is responsible for articulating vision, mission, strategy, and strategic objectives to drive the College’s workforce alignment and development initiatives. Lowery provides overall leadership of Ivy Tech workforce alignment and development initiatives and organization. He develops deep collaborative partnerships with and engages state and federal workforce and economic development organizations, private sector organizations, business associations, and other groups pursuing workforce and economic development and training solutions for Indiana. He focuses on ensuring Ivy Tech is the primary provider of demand-driven, customer-centric, high-quality training and education for key economic sectors in Indiana. Lowery makes certain Ivy Tech is playing a leading and collaborative role in the transformation of Indiana’s economy where employers have the skilled workforce necessary to compete successfully in the global economy and employees have the skills necessary to increase their productivity and income. Prior to serving as Senior Vice President, Lowery served as Chancellor for the Columbus/Southeast Region of Ivy Tech Community College for two years.

Before coming to Ivy Tech, Lowery led Public Policy and Engagement for Hillenbrand, Inc. In this capacity, he had responsibility for corporate communications, public affairs and government relations. Managing all external and internal communications for Hillenbrand, his focus was to ensure the corporate strategy of acquisitive and organic growth was effectively aligned in message across the enterprise. He also served as chair of the executive committees of Hillenbrand’s Charitable Contributions Committee. With Hillenbrand for 20 years, he served previously in a variety of management and leadership capacities at Hillenbrand’s Batesville Casket Company. Those positions included leadership of Sales Development, Human Resources, Acquisition Integration, Product Leadership, and Marketing and Strategic Planning for the Options division.

Prior to joining Hillenbrand, Lowery was Executive Director of the Association of Indiana Counties, an aide to former Indiana Governor Robert D. Orr, and an aide to then-Senator Dan Quayle. While on the staff of Governor Orr, he was actively involved in supporting the A+ Program for Educational Excellence and received the Sagamore of the Wabash Award. He holds the degree of Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs (1984) from Indiana University and is pursuing a Master’s of Science in Management.

Passionate about education, Lowery served as President on the Board of Trustees of the Batesville Community School Corporation until coming to Ivy Tech and was a founder of the Batesville Community Education Foundation. As President of the Batesville Board, he led the school corporation in efforts that resulted in top academic and managerial rankings including: “A” ranking by the Indiana Department of Education, “Best Buy” from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, and top ISTEP scores in Indiana (top 10 overall in the state). Under his leadership, the school corporation partnered with the city of Batesville, private businesses, philanthropic organizations and individuals to fund and establish a full scale college campus in Batesville operated by Ivy Tech Community College. The campus opened in January of 2013 and is a first-of-its-kind in Indiana.

Lowery and his wife, Jerilyn, a 1984 graduate of Indiana University (BA – Journalism and Political Science), are active supporters of various Indiana University organizations. They are members and supporters of the Well House Society, the Arbutus Society, the Alumni Association, the Varsity Club and Hoosiers for Higher Education. They, too, have funded a student scholarship through the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA). Lowery serves as a member of the Executive Council of the IU Alumni Association and as a member of the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs Distinguished Alumni Council.

Lowery was appointed by Governor Pence in 2015 to serve on the Indiana State Workforce Innovation Council. He is a member of the boards of directors of The Sagamore Institute and Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana. Previously, he served as Vice Chair of the Public Affairs Steering Committee of the National Association of Manufacturers and the Indiana General Assembly’s Study Committee on Economic Development. He was founder of the Community Roundtable, an organization of leaders committed to thoughtful public discourse, contemplation, innovative solutions, and actions to address broad economic, educational and social challenges.

He and Jerilyn, a high school English teacher, reside in Batesville. Their children are Jarrod, a graduate of IU, who now works as a strategist for Rotex Global in Cincinnati, and Jordan, a senior at IU.