From Melody's Desk: What's Next for UVAFinance?

Dear Colleagues,

You may have heard that finance will be one of the next areas of emphasis as UVA continues its goal towards organizational excellence. Just as UVA is committed to innovation in the classroom and lab, this fall, we will begin a multi-year effort to transform to the workplace of the future. This project will include modernizing our job skills and daily tasks, enhancing the great service we provide to our stakeholders and implementing state-of-the-art technology to provide excellent financial support, solve problems and build stronger connections.

The purpose of my message today is to share with you what we know about the upcoming journey as we move forward together into UVA’s third century.

The Finance Strategic Transformation

We describe the upcoming work in this way because it most accurately reflects what we want this process to be: “strategic” because we will identify the best and most impactful ways to improve how we support education, research, and patient care in a modern-day, streamlined, and dynamic workplace, and “transformation” because it’s a re-imagination of where and how we deliver services, what technology we utilize, how we are connected across the entire University and how we think of our roles on teams.

The journey we’re undertaking will be adapted to finance and to UVA; it is not modeled after any existing transformation. We are just beginning to plan and develop how future service will be delivered, what a future financial organization will look like, and how we will invest in your professional development. We haven’t defined the entire process now from start to finish but will communicate with you and all of our stakeholders frequently.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we know now about the Strategic Transformation:

• We will develop and manage the skilled and professional financial workforce needed for the future, enabling our finance teams to grow professionally. This is not a force reduction.
• We will optimize service delivery and strengthen relationships within the finance community across Grounds while identifying the best place for financial work to take place, wherever that may be located. 
• We will streamline business processes to improve outcomes and eliminate steps that do not add value. It’s about saving time and effort, enabling us to focus on mission-critical activities. 
• We will implement and support technology that will better enable us to do our jobs and allow us to deliver excellent service, to grow strategically, and to responsibly steward UVA’s resources.

I know you probably have questions, some that will not have answers yet. We will learn a lot more as we begin to plan this work. And I promise we will keep you up to date both in the UVAFinance blog and on the newly refreshed VP Finance website when it goes live later this year. You can email me and we will look to address those in future communications.

UVA has experienced a lot of transition lately and although the result is desirable and best for the University, it can still be challenging to get there. I’m glad we have an extended team of finance professionals across Grounds that I can count on to share input and ideas as things take shape. In fact, we can’t do it without you – we’ll need your participation and innovation to make this process successful and your patience and collaboration as we determine the best path forward.

So, as we embark on this journey, please join me on the ride. It may be bumpy and the path may not be clear from time to time, but I am confident that together, we will become our best.


Thanks for all you do!