Whenever a snow day graces the College of William and Mary, Chief Business Officer Sean Hughes’ morning routine actually starts the night before.
After clocking out from work at the modest Griggs House on Jamestown Road, Hughes drives home to his family in Williamsburg’s Queens Lake neighborhood. Before going inside to his wife, Jessie, and two sons, Colby and Bennett, Hughes promptly hops on the phone with the rest of what he refers to as the “Group of Four”: Associate Vice President for the Division of Public Safety Cliff Everton, Chief of Police Don Butler and Emergency Manager Justin Weston.
After examining weather forecasts and discussing contingency safety precautions, Hughes contributes to making the final call for the day ahead. While only a small part of his far-reaching responsibilities at the College, Hughes sees the “snow day protocol” as one essential piece of the puzzle he builds every day.
“The way I like to phrase it is that my job is to keep all the balls in the air at all times,” Hughes said.
When Hughes first arrived at the College in 2018, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of the William and Mary Real Estate Foundation before moving to Business Affairs to become its Chief Business Officer in 2022.
Hughes said his role encapsulates far more than the title suggests. While many assume the Chief Business Officer deals mostly with finance, Hughes’ work actually has more to do with campus operations, landscape and construction planning, with Hughes seeing himself more as a “Chief Campus Operations Officer.”
Hughes also works closely with the College’s board of visitors, where he serves as the lead non-board administrator of the Committee on Administration, Buildings and Grounds. Hughes delivers updates to the board at every meeting on the Campus Comprehensive Plan and other operational focuses. He shared that BOV preparations start well over a month in advance, citing his current work on February’s meeting that coincides with Charter Day.
While getting up to speak in front of board members still brings some nerves to the surface, Hughes feels well-prepared from his time in Charleston, where he was obligated to present to the school board on live television.
“The board meetings don’t freak me out as much as they freak other people out,” Hughes said. “Just because I had six years of being on TV presenting every two weeks, since they televised everything.”
Growing up, Hughes’ father worked in the food manufacturing industry, which meant he always had to relocate every couple of years as his father closed old factories and opened new ones. Hughes checked off more places than most: Chicago, Ill.; California; Pennsylvania; Maryland; North Carolina and Rome, Ga., where he stayed long enough to graduate from The Darlington School in 2002.
While admittedly not as much of a “natural athlete” as his younger brother, Hughes still managed to reach varsity level in four different sports: basketball, lacrosse, football and track. Even still, Hughes attributes his placement on several Amateur Athletic Union teams and offensive lines to his overwhelming size advantage.
“I had no business being on that [Maryland AAU basketball] team,” Hughes said. “But I was the tall center guy. I never played football until my sophomore year of high school. And I started that year [at left tackle], never having played before, and was on the starting team for a defending Georgia High School championship team, which was very intimidating. I did not know what I was getting into.”
Hughes believes that his “all-over-the-place” upbringing taught him how to interact with strangers, making friends quicker than most people.
“Once I had gotten to college, I really appreciated having moved around,” Hughes said. “One, I could make friends with anybody. Two, it gave me a lot of perspective in meeting people from all over the country while at college, which was really fun. We always had a bunch in common, no matter who they were.”
As an 18-year-old freshman at Clemson University, Hughes didn’t realize right away that he had met the love of his life. The very first girl he met on-campus, now Jessie Hughes, ended up becoming his wife nine years later. He explained that while they were close friends throughout college, they didn’t actually start dating until winter break of their senior year, which Hughes has come to appreciate.
“We could never get it together throughout most of college, which was probably a good thing,” Hughes said. “We both had some growing up to do. I’m glad I was able to do it and make mistakes without somebody I was spending the rest of my life with.”
While Jessie Hughes strongly agrees in retrospect, her “instant crush” on him made the whole situation feel slightly different at the time. She described the winter break night of their senior year when they met at a bar near campus. What she saw when she walked inside made her realize Hughes would be her person.
“He was talking to another girl, and I was like, ‘Totally great!’” she said. “She was a mutual friend of ours — I think she was even engaged at the time — and I was instantly green with jealousy. And, as they say, the rest is history.”
Before starting at the College in 2018, Hughes previously worked for six years as Director of Planning and Real Estate of the Charleston County School District in South Carolina. During his tenure in the secondary school world, Hughes dealt with a wide range of students, from extremely wealthy to homeless families. He shared that public service has been a throughline of his work since that period.
“We had schools that were very, very poor, where we had washers and dryers in the classrooms because that was the only place a lot of students got their clothes washed,” Hughes said. “And we had very rich schools as well in Mount Pleasant, where, you know, the parking lot looked like a luxury car dealership every day. And so trying to provide services across that swath was really interesting.”
Chief of Staff of Business Affairs Taylor Brings Ph.D. ’23 worked closely with Hughes since first being hired as the Director of Special Projects for Business Affairs in February 2024. However, Brings had already become well-acquainted with Hughes as early as 2018 while she was working in Student Affairs and Hughes was the Chief Executive Officer of the William and Mary Real Estate Foundation.
Brings described an early experience in her career where she and Hughes worked directly together to address a time-sensitive issue. It was during that high-stakes situation that Brings started to admire Hughes’ approach to his work.
“We really had to put our heads together and solve this major problem,” Brings said. “And right away, I just loved the way Sean approached the problem. And the questions he asked were really insightful.”
Fast-forward to 2023, Brings had just finished her Ph.D. in higher education administration at the College and was on the hunt for work. She knew that Hughes was looking for a Director of Special Projects, which entailed a wide range of institutional responsibilities, including access control upgrades and mobile credentials, as well as the Campus Comprehensive Plan.
After Brings met with Hughes, she realized their goals for optimizing the office’s culture were closely aligned. She soon landed the position. Shortly after, Business Affairs lost an HR liaison, complicating matters for an office that had previously lacked administrative staff. Once it became clear Business Affairs needed a Chief of Staff, Hughes pushed for Brings to step into the inaugural role.
“Sean really advocated for me to be his Chief of Staff and went to HR and got the position approved,” Brings said. “It felt like the work I was doing already, and so it’s been a great partnership in that way.”
Brings did not hesitate when describing her experience working with Hughes.
“To be blunt, Sean is the best boss I have ever had, and I’m not someone who says that lightly at all,” Brings said. “He is a really dedicated and thoughtful leader. You can work for a leader who is smart, thoughtful, intentional, who wants to develop you — and Sean is all of those things. But what I love about working with him is there’s no ego in his work. He doesn’t center himself. He centers students, faculty, those who we are serving.”
Brings mentioned that at the most recent BOV meeting in November, Hughes used his platform as a committee leader to give flowers to his team members who executed the contingency plans for the housing construction delay, which involved over 900 students this fall. Brings said that the gesture was part of Hughes’ larger commitment to making sure his colleagues get proper recognition.
“He finds these moments to elevate and celebrate the people and team around him in a way that I don’t see many leaders throughout my career doing,” Brings said. “I’ve rarely seen a leader who does that so well and so naturally.”
Brings shared that Hughes made a pointed effort to establish a successful working relationship with her from the jump. Being an avid free-time researcher, or as Jessie affectionately calls him, an “internet warrior,” Hughes tapped into the workplace literature to cultivate a handful of selected readings on what a thriving Chief of Staff-Executive relationship could look like. His goal was not to assign more homework but to prompt a flowing discussion about their shared values.
“He and I were really intentional to make sure that we’re in lockstep and fully honest and open with each other all the time,” Brings said. “I’ve now lent the books to a couple other chiefs of staff because they were like, ‘Oh, we never thought of doing that.’ And so that was kind of a cool moment for me as a younger Chief of Staff on campus, to share something we did that really helped, and now others are modelling that.”
Another dimension of the Business Affairs Office’s dynamic duo is the BOV. Hughes and Brings coordinate back and forth for several weeks in advance of each quarterly meeting, with Hughes typically refining their slideshow featuring updates on the Campus Comprehensive Plan and other central business items, while Brings keeps close tabs on her contacts across campus departments to ensure their concerns are meaningfully addressed.
Brings shared that Hughes recently gave her the green light to start drafting resolutions for the board, which she described as a highly gratifying experience that Hughes’ leadership style and desire to see his team thrive made possible.
“Sean is a really developmental leader,” Brings said. “So I told him, ‘That’s an experience I don’t have — could I try it?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, go for it.’ So I’ve learned a lot and really enjoyed it. But it’s also weird when you see a resolution you write pass, and now it’s an official document. That’s a really cool feeling.”
Chief of Staff of the President’s Office Carlane Pittman-Hampton Ph.D. ’03 has similarly worked closely with Hughes since 2023, ranging from the board’s Committee on Administration, Buildings and Grounds to ongoing campus development projects. For Pittman-Hampton, Hughes is someone she constantly has on speed dial to glean insights on wide-reaching matters of the College.
“Sean is my go-to guy, he really is,” she said.
Pittman-Hampton touched on Hughes’ character at work, celebrating his willingness to step up to the plate and his consistent presence in crucial moments. She described him as a natural “solution-finder” who intuitively understands both what he can bring to a situation and when to show up.
“He’s always willing to help, and he’s always willing to sit at the table and be thoughtful about things,” Pittman-Hampton said. “So even things that are outside of what he would normally do within Business Affairs, he just has a really good mind for the university. What President Rowe always says about him — which I love — is that he holds the whole of the university. I haven’t seen him have an enemy yet because he gets along with everyone.”
Pittman-Hampton also remarked on Hughes’ reassuring presence in a room.
“He’s a big dude, so I always feel very safe around him from a physical standpoint,” she said. “He’s really just a gentle giant.”
While Hughes certainly takes his job seriously, Associate Vice President for Budget and Financial Planning Mike Maddalena III can attest that Hughes also knows how to have a laugh and “chop it up” over Clemson football. Maddalena and Hughes are both anxiously awaiting the release of Grand Theft Auto VI, whose release date was recently delayed until 2026 — much to their dismay. Hughes had considered taking the entire week off to discover the new Florida-themed terrain, which reminded Maddalena of a recurring inside joke between them.
“One of the things we laugh about is in Florida, they have this thing called the ‘Florida man’ who does weird and stupid stuff,” Maddalena said. “The headline will be like, ‘Florida man captures alligator or brings his pet alligator into a McDonalds.’ So we always laugh about that kind of stuff.”
Maddalena discussed his working relationship with Hughes, which has often revolved around optimizing university operations with limited resources available. Reflecting on his previous position in Business Affairs, Maddalena shared that Hughes always knew how to balance worker autonomy with strategic oversight.
“As long as you take care of business, he’ll let you run and then circle back to make sure that things are marrying up with what is strategically needed to get the job done,” Maddalena said. “So he’s definitely a great leader from that perspective. You can’t ask for much of a better boss.”
Maddalena also celebrated Hughes’s ability to “keep the morale high” during COVID-19, which brought unprecedented challenges for university operations.
“I think he definitely did a great job of helping the business services and affairs areas navigate that, because that wasn’t an easy time to navigate,” he said. “It tanked out our facilities areas, and he rebounded that in a lot of ways.”
When not in his office in the Griggs House along Jamestown Road, or riding around campus to various departments in his trademark golf cart, Hughes said he dedicates himself to being the best father possible.
Jessie described Hughes as a family-centered father who goes out of his way to make sure that his two boys, 10-year-old Colby and 8-year-old Bennett, feel attended to and appreciated in their diverse interests. While Bennett tends more toward creative ventures and Colby is deeply invested in sports, she said that Hughes always finds a way to show up, even when unfamiliar with the activity.
“He’s the freaking best dad ever,” she said. “And I have the best dad ever, so for me to say that Sean is the best dad is a huge, huge compliment. He takes every opportunity to teach the kids something — whether it’s, ‘This is how you make a fire in the fireplace,’ or, ‘This is how you deal with a friend who’s upsetting you.’”
In addition to GTA VI and other computer and PlayStation games, which are often related to building things — Hughes admitted a slight resemblance to his line of work — Hughes enjoys the flexibility his work gives him to invest in his kids’ favorite activities, spend time with Jessie and be active in his neighborhood.
“I truly enjoy my family a lot,” Hughes said. “So just spending time with Jessie and the kids is really, really important to me — doing whatever. Whether that’s driving to Charlottesville to pick apples or just spending time playing out in the yard.”
Reflecting on his personal goals for the next few years, Hughes said he especially hopes to maintain good health. In every area of his life, Hughes most importantly wants to help other people live a little lighter.
“I was working the neighborhood Christmas tree sale [the other day], so there’s components of service there,” Hughes said. “I’m just trying to leave my little corner of the world a little bit better than I found it.”
