Update on Finance reorganization

In April, we announced plans to reorganize financial services for the Okanagan campus following a comprehensive assessment conducted by MMK Consulting Ltd. That review examined the organization of financial management on the Okanagan campus and recommended an integrated-distributed structure to better match current and emerging needs.

We are now ready to implement the changes and thank the Finance Design Team for their thoughtful work in fine tuning the new structure for financial services on our campus.

New Finance positions and portfolios

The integrated-distributed model will focus on continuing to empower faculties and departments to determine the support they require, working with financial managers on a day-to-day basis, while the services required to provide the support is centrally coordinated and managed by Finance.

The reorganized Finance team will include the following:

  • A Director of Finance
  • An Associate Director of Finance Operations
  • A six-person team of Portfolio Finance Managers, centrally coordinated but serving a specific portfolio of academic and/or administrative units and reporting to the Associate Director of Finance Operations. Where possible, these managers will be located in the areas they support.
  • A small team of  analysts  to provide strategic budgetary decision support, reporting to the Director
  • A Payment and Procurement Services team, functioning on a system-wide basis but with local Okanagan presence and leadership. This team will align supply management, accounts payable and payroll processing.

View the new Finance organization chart

Staff appointments

As a result of a family move to Alberta, Carla Waters recently resigned her position as Director of Finance after seven years of leadership in our Finance Department. We wish Carla and her family all the very best with their move to Calgary this summer and thank her for her long-term contribution to UBC and our Okanagan campus.

Moving forward, the immediate priority is to fill the Portfolio Finance Manager positions and as such, the Director and Associate Director roles will go to competition this fall. I am pleased to announce that Curtis Morcom and Carri Lawrence have agreed to take on interim leadership roles to help through the transition and to lead the hiring process.

While four of the new Portfolio Finance Manager positions are currently being posted, two managers are already in place under the new structure:

  • Ray Fahrun will continue to support the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences
  • Lisa Goerzen will support the Associate Vice-President, Students

In addition, Amy Hobbs is the first of two analysts on the new Budget and Strategic Decision Support team, with a second person to be hired at a later date.

Dennis Silva, as Director of Payroll and Procurement Services, assumes responsibility for this function system-wide. Doug Andrews will provide local leadership as Manager of Payment and Procurement Services on the Okanagan campus.

I want to thank the entire Finance team for their hard work and flexibility in the face of change and extend my appreciation to each of you as we transition to this new structure to better serve the finance needs of the Okanagan campus.

Sincerely,

Michael Shakespeare
Associate Vice-President, Administration and Finance

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