Strategy, Service, and Process Improvement – Glassman joins PSDS

Jenn Glassman

Jenn Glassman has joined UVAFinance as Director of Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services.

Glassman comes to UVA most recently from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where she led the Procure-to-Pay/Travel & Expense business technology strategy as the organization adopted Workday Financials.

Before that, she served in several Procurement leadership roles at the University of California, San Diego, often times supporting state-wide initiatives across the ten UC campuses. She has an extensive background in managing procure-to-pay strategy and operations and leading process improvement efforts that deliver results organization-wide.

Glassman, her husband Gabriel, and their two sons Henry, age 11, and Charles, age 9, are looking forward to finding a home in Charlottesville that has plenty of room to garden (and perhaps room enough for a few chickens). The family is an intense board game playing family, tackling extensive, multiplayer games that require both short-term/long term resource planning and strategic thinking. “Once the boys started beating us at chess, we knew we needed to spice things up,” Glassman says about their deep dive into board games.

Almost as soon as Jenn Glassman became the new Director of PSDS, the COVID-19 response shifted all UVA staff into a remote-work environment. Luckily, Glassman has abundant past experience working in semi-remote and full-remote situations. Although she hasn’t been on the job a full month yet, she has already had one on one conversations with every PSDS team member via Zoom; and, presenting via Zoom on her second day on the job at a PSDS all-staff meeting. 

Glassman and her family are aficionados of
strategy games; she recommends Agricola
for those new to the genre. 

While Glassman acknowledges Zoom has been a lifesaver, she looks forward to making connections in person, with her team, colleagues, and stakeholders.

“When things are settled, I’m eager to meet with our partners face to face, understand their focus and priorities, and hear their thoughts on how procurement can best support them,” she says.

Her passion to align the procurement function with the core mission at a pivotal time in an organization’s evolution is what excited her about joining UVA.

 “FST’s commitment to not only implement Workday Financials technology, but also take the time to refactor our processes, offers up a chance to increase our operational efficiency in Procurement, which in turn, enables us to take on more strategic initiatives targeted towards generating cost savings for the University and pursuing value-add programs.”

Intelligent business process design is at the core of Glassman’s philosophy on what it takes to build an effective operational unit. But, the secret ingredient, she believes, is how well a team collaborates. 

“Collaboration is often misunderstood as cooperation. We all like the sound of collaborating until we disagree. But, that’s a defining moment for a team – how we behave when we disagree. Our ability to listen and take in a set of diverse opinions and thoughts, to view a situation from multiple vantage points. Our willingness to tackle complex issues and workshop ideas, and above all to communicate honestly and authentically – that’s collaboration. Done well, it elevates the performance of the team and the organization at large. And it can be quite fun!”

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