Neal oversees the officers of the OVPIT cabinet which includes communications, cybersecurity, finance, human resources, privacy, and coordinates responsibilities across the organization including the Research and Education Networks Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC), OmniSOC, and Pervasive Technology Institute.

Prior to his appointment as deputy CIO, he was the associate vice president for Enterprise Systems at IU. In this role, he provided executive leadership and oversight for university-wide Enterprise Systems initiatives at IU, partnering with academic and administrative offices to further the university's leading role in academic excellence. He oversaw IU’s enterprise resource planning systems in support of human resources, payroll, finance, student information, student advising, research administration, learning management, parking, CrimsonCard, and other academic and administrative systems. His portfolio also included responsibility for IU’s data centers and physical hardware infrastructure.

Previously, Neal served as chief executive officer of the Unizin Consortium, an Austin, Texas-based group of research institutions dedicated to enhancing learner success with digital technology. Founded in 2014 by Indiana University, the University of Michigan, the University of Florida, and Colorado State University, Unizin has grown to dozens of partners working to influence the digital learning landscape by focusing on content, learning environment platforms, and data.

Neal began his IU career in 2001, and led the Enterprise Software team, managing decision support, enterprise systems integration, database and server administration, identity management and storage, and server infrastructure.

He is a graduate of IU's Kelley School of Business, and previously spent 15 years in the private sector leading system development efforts in the manufacturing and advertising industries.