By Frank Laezza, Vice-President, Finance & Operations
Every year, like all of you in the VPFO, I set performance goals that align with our strategic plan and push us forward. This year, I set two key goals for our Finance teams that I believe are critical to building a stronger, more connected finance function at UBC:
- Assess where we stand. We conducted a comprehensive maturity assessment of UBC’s Finance functions and processes to identify gaps and opportunities.
- Map out where we need to go. We’re building and implementing a roadmap to advance financial maturity—optimizing processes, investing in talent, and integrating better technology.
It’s been a year of hard work, but the momentum is real. Here’s how we’re making it happen.
Strengthening our foundation
To get a clear picture of where we stand, we partnered with Deloitte to assess our financial maturity. The biggest take-away? We have a compelling opportunity to create stronger cross-functional connections and decision making by improving how we gather, analyze, and share data.
Smarter Tools, Better Insights
Data-driven decision-making isn’t just a buzzword—it’s the future of finance at UBC. That’s why we’ve introduced Calumo and Power BI to provide better insights and reporting capabilities. We’ve also restructured how financial information is organized online as part of our digital transformation project, setting the stage for stronger policies, clearer processes, and seamless integration with Workday, Adaptive Planning, Planon, and other key systems.
Building our team to drive transformation
Tools are important, but people make the real difference. That’s why, in collaboration with Finance and HR leadership, we’ve designed five key roles to help shape the future of Finance at UBC. These roles will integrate and cross-connect our end-to-end finance processes and build the cadence, roadmap and tools that will continue to advance our financial maturity. Better yet, we have now been able to find ideal candidates for most of these roles:
- Effectively managing UBC’s financial future requires forward-looking planning, risk anticipation, and clear communication. To support this, Sarah Goold, Director of Long-Term Financial Modelling & Planning, reporting to the Treasurer, will lead a new team focused on refining UBC’s top-down financial model and five-year planning tool to strengthen financial stability and strategic decision-making. Sarah will lead the development of our five-year financial plan, establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and long-term financial targets, and secure approval for the five-year financial plan. Once approved, these targets will set the financial parameters guiding the Comptroller’s Budgeting and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) team in constructing the annual budget.
- To further align our planning journey, we are excited to renew our search for the role of Senior Director, Budget and FP&A. Reporting to the comptroller and collaborating with the provost’s budget team, the successful candidate will drive the renewal of our budgeting processes and bottom-up financial planning practices. Working collaboratively across finance and technology teams, this leader will integrate innovative budgeting tools and streamline comptroller bottom-up FP&A operations to enhance forecasting accuracy and resource allocation. This transformation is vital to ensure that our budgeting practices are agile, data-driven, and fully aligned with UBC’s strategic priorities. Interested candidates can learn more and apply for this role at UBC Careers.
You can also read more about how both these team’s work together on the VPFO website.
- While the financial model, five-year planning tool and budget set our understanding of what resources we expect to have available, Leena Mahasen, Executive Director, Transformation & Strategy, will help us evaluate how we are going to use those resources as efficiently and effectively as possible. Reporting into the Vice-President as part of the portfolio’s Senior Leadership Team, Leena leads the development of a comprehensive financial planning and analysis framework aimed at enhancing financial efficiency, modernizing our financial processes, and ensuring that we are aligned with the university’s strategic goals. In addition, she oversees the VPFO’s strategic initiatives, including the formulation, execution, and monitoring of our key objectives and performance indicators. Leena will collaborate with senior leaders across the university to advance a forward-looking, data-driven financial strategy that supports UBC’s long-term vision.
- Ensuring that these best practices and performance targets work will be the mission of Brad Klaiber, Senior Director, Accounting & Compliance. Reporting into the Comptroller, Brad is tasked with strengthening our financial oversight, ensuring regulatory compliance, and enhancing accounting practices at UBC. Brad will also provide strategic leadership in financial reporting, internal controls, adherence to evolving compliance requirements, and supporting the university’s financial integrity. He will work closely with key stakeholders to drive efficiency, mitigate risk, and align accounting functions with UBC’s broader financial strategy.
- Part of supporting this work is improving data transparency to empower better reporting and more informed decision making across all roles. Angela Huang, Senior Director of Financial Business Intelligence. As the leader of our new Analytics Center of Excellence (ACOE) within the Office of the Comptroller, Angela will empower the VPFO and the university with data-driven decision-making. Overseeing specialized teams in BI operations, data governance, development, and training, she will ensure data quality and effective use of BI tools, fostering efficiency, collaboration, and strategic alignment across UBC.
Viewed separately, each of these roles leads a considerable piece of work. But when you combine them together, you can see that these roles feed off each other to build continuous, end-to-end improvement in our day-to-day finance work. They will work together to support our Finance Community partners with improved clarity in process, policy and procedure that will help us provide improved service and support to our customers across UBC.
What’s next?
Finance Renewal doesn’t stop here! As we move into our next phase, we’re looking at clarifying the cadence and strengthening the hand-offs of our finance activities across UBC as well as prioritizing projects that will bring the most value to UBC, including:
- Smarter budgeting tools – like Activity-Based Costing to improve financial planning.
- Stronger collaboration – through projects like digital transformation and enhanced finance communities of practice.
- Deeper integration of our tools – including further development of Calumo, Power BI, and SharePoint.
As our new leaders settle into their roles, we’ll continue refining these initiatives with more structure and clarity.
Join us in transforming Finance
None of this happens without the dedication and expertise of our Finance Community. Thank you for everything you do! As we move ahead, I encourage you to think about how you can be part of this transformation—whether through projects, collaboration, or new ways of working.
And as for me? I’m already setting my goals for 2025/26—because this is just the beginning. Let’s keep building together.