Elia Lopez

Senior Associate Vice President for Finance and Fiscal Reporting

Elia Lopez currently serves as the senior associate vice president of finance and fiscal reporting at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

In this role, she provides strategic and operational leadership, overseeing financial and administrative areas such as accounting, financial reporting, payroll, and tax compliance. She has established solid business relationships with both internal and external partners, collaborating to ensure accurate financial reporting that aligns with the university’s mission and goals. Elia affords financial performance measures periodically to the executive vice president for finance and business affairs and CFO to facilitate informed decision-making.

Elia has served The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and its legacy institution in increasingly responsible roles through her career, starting as an accountant reconciling state appropriations. She has held several key positions, including assistant vice president for financial services, senior associate comptroller, and director of accounting. She possesses extensive knowledge in financial statement preparation, financial forecasting, continuous process improvement, ERP system implementation, all areas of general ledger management, financial audits, payroll functions, internal controls, grants accounting and bursar. She is an advocate for team member training and development, and is committed to delivering high-level service both internally and externally.

Elia is a certified public accountant and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting from UTRGV’s legacy institution UTPA. She has over 35 years of experience in finance and accounting related areas within higher education administration.