🎉 VPFO 2025 Wrapped
Posted on:
December 19, 2025
A year of impact, growth, and behind-the-scenes wins. As we wrap up 2025, VPFO teams reflect on a year defined by service, collaboration, and progress. From financial systems and workforce planning to risk management and campus safety, here’s how our work supported the UBC community throughout the year.
📢 Communications & Engagement
- Launched 21 campaigns across our divisions this year. Between all our websites, we had over 1.2 million page visits!
- Launched the new Finance website, Finance Portal, and Learning Spaces websites, and refreshed all our websites to the new VPFO look and feel.
- Released the new VPFO visual identity guidelines, and refreshed our VPFO assets and templates.
- VPFO Day 2025 was our biggest gathering yet with 450+ staff joining the conversation around what it means to be the VPFO.
- Newsletter content now featured on digital signage.
See full details in A look back on communications in 2025.
✅ Comptroller
- Advanced the university budget process and secured unanimous Board of Governors approval for 2025/26 balanced operating budget.
- In partnership with Facilities, successfully implemented the new Utility Management System, modernizing the 30-year-old system for customers to manage accounts, view/download bills, and track usage.
- Ensured a smooth transition to new auditors and obtained a clean audit opinion.
- Completed portfolio-wide zero-based budgeting and supported workforce planning.
🔒 Enterprise Risk & Assurance
- Launched a new Vision and Strategy, positioning ERA as strategic partners and trusted advisors.
- Established UBC’s first Enterprise Risk Management Committee and set up regular meetings in 2025.
- Formalized Internal Assurance’s mandate through an updated Charter and Strategy.
- Introduced a new Advisory function and formal ERA scorecards.
- Supported management in closing or consolidating 14 audit recommendations.
️ ♻️ Facilities
- Asset Replacement & Improvements: Completed 5,000+ work orders with turnaround times under two weeks, supporting smooth transitions from construction to operations.
- Building Operations: Improved reliability by tagging equipment before occupancy and replacing aging systems to reduce downtime.
- Capital Planning & Development: Secured approval for the Five-Year Capital Plan (2026–31) and launched major projects, including the ANSO Renewal and Academic District Energy System Electric Boiler & Thermal Energy Storage.
- Custodial Services: Expanded staff by 6% to support new spaces and delivered high-quality floor care, including refinishing the AMS Nest main floor in-house.
- Customer Services & Informatics: Launched a Service Request Dashboard and a 15-KPI performance report to improve service transparency and accountability.
- Energy & Water Services: Completed the Main Campus Substation switchgear replacement, a major milestone for campus infrastructure reliability.
- Facilities Planning: Advanced accessibility with campus workshops and fostered sustainability through programs like the UBC Furniture Reuse Program.
- Municipal Services: Updated scaffolding and fleet policies, expanded the waste management fleet, and launched a new Asset Management program.
- Project Services: Managed 250+ projects across 51 buildings, including major academic and research facilities.
- People and project recognition: Celebrating excellence in 2025, including Nazreen Cameron – President’s Service Award, Sean Lynch – ISSA Emerging Leader Award, Denise Pearce – PCAPPA Unsung Hero Award, and project awards like ASHRAE, SAB, and Society of Façade Engineering.
See full details in Celebrating our achievements: 2025 reflections from John Metras.
💳 Financial Services & Strategic Procurement
- Launched Ascend, a cloud-based accounts payable system for processing invoices with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. The new system has since processed 34,000 invoices with approximately 70% of those invoices being processed into Workday the same day they are received by Accounts Payable.
- 549,238 e-commerce transactions processed to date (45% increase year-over-year) with Workday integration across 482+ campus sites and stores and 12+ TouchNet Ready Partners.
- Completed a major Indigenous Business Directory upgrade, adding 143 new suppliers (2,100 total) in support of UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan.
- Launched the Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) project in Q3, migrating ~1,100 procurement agreements.
- Issued 26,500 purchase orders and processed 185,000 invoices.
🎟️Integrated Service Centre
- 40,000 tickets resolved
- 15,000+ calls received
- 200,000 Workday Knowledge Base views, helping staff find answers faster
🪙 Payroll
- 700,000+ payroll payments processed
- $2.04B+ in annual gross pay
- 12,000+ ServiceNow tickets resolved
🦺 Safety & Risk Services
- 300–400 Privacy Impact Assessments opened annually
- 38,250 calls handled by Communications Operations
- 6,618 Safe App downloads in 2025
- Emergency Management engagement: 21,037 total webpage visits, including key emergency and preparedness resources
📊 Transformation & Strategy
- Executive Director Leena Mahasen, joined earlier this year, establishing the new Transformation & Strategy team.
- Welcomed new members to strengthen finance strategy and digital transformation, with this year’s focus on delivering Phase 1 of the Budget Reimagination project and key operational initiatives in finance and business transformation.
- Formalized a dotted reporting line to the Provost & VP Academic, to advance UBC’s financial maturity, strengthen collaboration, and enable long‑term sustainability through process modernization.
🏦 Treasury
- Formed a new Long-Term Financial Modelling & Planning team to strengthen UBC’s existing long-term financial planning framework, delivering a structured, top-down five-year financial model that supports strategic decision-making and financial sustainability.
- Successfully completed the HSBC Canada to RBC transition in March 2025
- Billed approximately 5,000 University Neighbourhoods Association (UNA) Services Levy and General Municipal Services Levy (GMSL) invoices totaling $10.5M.
- Approximately 1,000,000 bank transactions were processed with 99% automatically reconciled.
😄 VPFO Human Resources
- The team experienced notable internal transitions, welcoming Danny Battsog, Martin Li, Nusrat Nipa, and Kristen Wei, while managing departures and celebrating internal growth through the promotions of Kasia Burza and Mary Hosick.
- VPFO HR recruited and onboarded 164 new hires, 73 staff transfers, and 59 staff promotions.
- Launched Strategic Workforce Planning to support a more proactive approach to aligning workforce capacity with current and future needs.
- Rolled out the Workplace Engagement Survey, supporting leaders in translating employee feedback into meaningful action.
- Delivered the inaugural Management Skills Training Program for Facilities, building foundational people-management capability across frontline managers.
- Providing consistent, trusted guidance across a wide range of complex matters, effectively managing 249 employee relations files.