Hello team, I hope your week is off to a great start, and that you all enjoyed an excellent long weekend! We actually hiked up Seymour (Dog Mountain Trail) and the view at the top was amazing!
Over the last 3 months, I’ve met with teams from across the VPFO, most recently with our new VPFO Project Management Team. Through these conversations one thing is always abundantly clear: whether it’s budgeting, implementing Workday and preparing for IRP Student, or exploring new models for Campus Security, what we do in the VPFO matters — deeply — to the success of UBC.
I’ve heard so many of you clearly and passionately connect your role or your work to our purpose and the university’s mission. And I have also heard your questions about where that alignment is unclear or seems to be missing.
To reflect both your feedback and our growing sense of shared purpose as a portfolio, the VPFO Senior Leadership Team and I have been working to review, simplify, and prioritize the VPFO Strategic Plan. I want our plan to help us connect our stories and our work together — to define a common cause that helps us continuously improve what we do in support of the university.
My intention is that our new VPFO PMO will help us deliver on that promise — both in the VPFO and, where we’re able to, across UBC.
As our plan comes together, we’ve identified two big priorities we need to start with — one is a reimagining of UBC’s budget process, and the other is preparing for the operationalization of IRP Student. These are big things, and the changes we’ve made to our teams are intended to set us up to successfully take on these initiatives.
I know our new PMO and Financial Operations & Integrated Services teams are up to the challenge. But to truly succeed we’ll need to keep coming together, all of us, to deliver a concerted effort.
I plan to keep listening, so please keep sharing with me! I welcome you to reach out — to me or any member of our leadership team — to share your experience.
I look forward to seeing what we can do together,
Frank Laezza
Vice-President Finance & Operations