Three Albers Faculty Members Take on New Leadership Roles
The Albers Brief caught up with Colette Hoption, Gabe Saucedo, and Viviane Lopuch about what they envision in their new positions and the best lessons they've learned from their mentors.
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Colette Hoption, Albers Associate Dean
Colette Hoption started her new role as Albers Associate Dean in January this year. Hoption was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. She completed her PhD in Management with a minor in Marketing at the Queen’s School of Business (now known as the Queen’s Smith School of Business) in Kingston, Canada. Her primary research area is leadership, specifically how leaders and followers interact to co- produce leadership.
She is currently examining the Bamboo Ceiling—i.e., the lack of Asian-American executive leadership in corporate America. Hoption’s work has been mentioned in The Economist, the Wall Street Journal and on CBC radio; she has published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Leadership, Leadership & Organizational Development Journal, Zeitschrift für Psychologie/ Journal of Psychology, and American Philosophical Quarterly.
At Seattle University, Hoption has taught both undergraduate and graduate students, focusing on management of people, organizational behavior, and international management
What do you envision doing in your new role? Any exciting plans in the works?
In my new role as Associate Dean, I would like to further our ongoing commitment to fostering an equitable, diverse and brave environment for Albers students, staff and faculty.
What lesson from a mentor has stuck with you?
It is more important to focus on how you get up than to ruminate on how you fell. (I am a big worrywart!)
Gabe Saucedo, Department Chair, Accounting
Accounting Associate Professor Gabriel Saucedo steps into the department chair role on July 1st. He joined Seattle University in 2014 from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he worked as a graduate assistant and completed his doctoral studies.
Prior to completing his PhD, Saucedo earned his undergraduate business administration degree from Gonzaga University. He then spent six years with KPMG Seattle in the audit practice, focusing on consumer product and healthcare clients.
What do you envision doing in your new role? Any exciting plans in the works?
The landscape of accounting (and accounting education) is constantly changing with new technologies, continued globalization, and revised accounting regulation. Over time, some have said that these changes (e.g., AI), may make accounting and accountants irrelevant. But interestingly enough, over time, these changes have made accountants more in demand.
With this in mind, my immediate goal as Department Chair is to ensure our students continue to be educated and prepped for: 1) a strong start; 2) in an accounting field of their choosing; 3) with a complete set of career-ready skills (soft skills and technical skills).
The Department diligently revised our undergraduate curriculum in the last year to make our program more attractive as a major/minor option for students, while at the same time infusing critical components of technology, sustainability, and DEI.
What lesson from a mentor has stuck with you?
A memorable mentor is Jacqueline Cabe (CFO, UW Medicine; formerly Partner, KPMG). I consulted her once when very stressed trying to manage multiple jobs as a new manager. She told me when meeting client demands and event deadlines, it was much better to look forward, set your target(s), and work backwards from there (instead of starting from today and working forward). I consistently keep this mindset when planning big projects, and also advise my students, especially Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) officers, to do the same.
Viviane Lopuch, Executive Director, Center for Leadership Formation
Viviane Lopuch takes over as Executive Director of the Center for Leadership Formation on July 1st. She is a Clinical Professor of Leadership and a certified Executive Coach with her own consulting practice. 
Lopuch holds a doctorate in leadership and master’s degrees in the fields of organizational management and organizational communication. Her doctoral research focused on the experience of adult learners and she has been teaching adults in leadership programs at the university level for over 15 years.
Lopuch is also an International Coaching Federation (ICF) credentialed Associate Certified Coach (ACC), having served as a pro-bono coach for organizations including King County Public Health, Women in Construction, Women in Cloud (WIC) and Women in Tech.
Prior to higher education, Lopuch enjoyed a 27-year career in industry roles spanning sales, marketing, and finance.
What do you envision doing in your new role? Any exciting plans in the works?
I envision doing what I have been doing throughout my professional life: focusing on relationships. There is an opportunity to bolster existing ones while also creating new ones internally within SU and, externally, with corporate, non-profit and other entities.
What’s exciting for me about this work is learning not only where we’ve been but discovering possibilities for the Center that can expand our reach to diverse constituencies through partnerships and new programming.
People are hungry for leadership development and want to know who they are at their core as leaders. The Center for Leadership Formation, through its programs, has a strong track record of delivering leadership education that does exactly that.
What lesson from a mentor has stuck with you?
Know when to lead and when to be a team player.