University of British Columbia

Senior Director – Comptroller’s Office

The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a global center for teaching, learning and research, ranked 40th in Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2023 and in the top five per cent of universities in the world. A leading center of teaching, learning and research excellence, UBC transforms personal initiative into innovation, and new ideas into impact. With its two main Canadian campuses located in Vancouver and in Kelowna, on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam and Syilx people respectively, they boast over 70,000 students spread over its 26 faculties, 18 schools and two colleges, and over 17,000 members of faculty and staff and alumni in more than 140 countries.

UBC has a $3.4 billion budget and the model used at UBC is decentralized, meaning that faculties and administrative units are responsible for balancing budgets within their respective portfolios. It uses the prior year’s allocations as a baseline to identify recurring funding and considers enhancement requests and the distribution of incremental revenues to fund strategic initiatives and to manage cost pressures. The development of UBC’s budget is a collaborative effort including all the university’s faculties and administrative units, with consultation and discussion at the core of the process.

UBC has three central finance teams — Finance & Integrated Services, Treasury, and the Comptroller's Office.

• Finance & Integrated Services: this team is responsible for the university's core Payroll and Financial Operations functions, as well as the Integrated Service Centre.
• Treasury: UBC’s Treasury focuses on the guardianship of the university's financial assets, debt insurance, and the re-lending of capital to departments and faculties.
• Comptroller’s Office: this team oversees the delivery of financial support to all academic and administrative units across the UBC Vancouver campus, as well as consolidated budgeting and analysis.

Reporting to the Comptroller, the Senior Director – Comptroller’s Office plays a pivotal role on the leadership team. The Senior Director is responsible for financial strategies, accounting and financial leadership, vision, and direction to assigned departments within the Comptroller portfolio. They work collaboratively with faculty partners & stakeholders to offer solutions and ultimately meet the strategic objectives of the university. The Senior Director provides leadership, coaching and mentoring to the team and fosters professional development and a culture of excellence.

The University’s Comptroller leads the vision and mission of the University’s budgeting, financial management, reporting processes, internal control over revenues, financial resources, and institutional management information systems.

The successful candidate will be a thoughtful and experienced leader, comfortable with the complexities of financial operations within an enterprise structure. Experience leading finance and accounting within a public-sector, multi-union environment is key; post-secondary experience is an asset. Possessing an inclusive and collaborative leadership style, they build engagement with faculty, staff, students, and administration by creating a true team environment, leveraging the considerable expertise and strength that exists across the institution. The Senior Director – Comptroller’s Office should be decisive and possess sufficient business acumen and political savvy to assist the department with complex decisions and guide staff through challenging initiatives.

To fill this position, UBC has partnered with leadership advisory firm Odgers Berndtson. Applications are encouraged immediately and should be submitted online at https://careers.odgersberndtson.com/en-ca/job/28886/

For more information, please contact Amelia Keller, Consultant of Odgers Berndtson. We thank all those who express an interest, however only those chosen for further development will be contacted.

UBC is an equal opportunity employer. In accordance with the Accessible Canada Act, 2019 and all applicable provincial accessibility standards, upon request, accommodation will be provided by both Odgers Berndtson and University of British Columbia throughout the recruitment, selection and/or assessment process to applicants with disabilities.

Odgers Berndtson is deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all the work that we do. As part of our efforts to better understand our ability to reach as broad a pool of candidates as possible for our searches, our DEI team would like to encourage you to take a moment and access our Self-Declaration Form.