Consolidating Capital Expertise in the VPFO

Thursday, June 03, 2021

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new Capital Financial Management team that will be responsible for the oversight and governance for UBC’s significant capital operations (i.e. over $1B ongoing/multi-year projects).

The university's capital accounting and capital reporting activities have historically been split between the Facilities group and the Comptroller’s team in the VP Finance & Operations portfolio (VPFO). These activities have now been strategically consolidated into a unified Capital Financial Management team that will provide project accounting support to Infrastructure Development in the Facilities group, as well as provide the core capital reporting that ties into UBC's consolidated Financial Reporting.   

“This realignment will better support our teams who work on capital functions for UBC by balancing workloads and providing better technical support and development opportunities, while supporting our end-to-end visibility, teamwork, accountability, financial rigour, and prioritization,” says UBC’s Comptroller Karamjeet Heer. “I am very excited to see this this new group grow and develop, and for UBC to benefit from end-to-end oversight of our capital projects and better alignment in support of operational efficiency."

To support this realignment, we are making the following changes effective June 1:

  • A new role of Finance Director, Capital Financial Management, will be created and recruited to lead this area.
  • A new role of Finance Manager, Project Accounting, will also be created and recruited to support the work in this area.
  • Several team members from Project & Planning Business Systems in Infrastructure Development and Financial Reporting in the Comptroller’s team are transitioning to the new Capital Financial Management team to support project accounting and capital reporting activities.
  • Once these roles are in place, VPFO-related capital activities will all transition to the Capital Financial Management team.

The new team will report into the Comptroller's group via the Assistant Comptroller.