FAS Colleagues:
I am honored to join the UCSF community as the Senior Vice Chancellor, Finance and Administration. I am here for the same reason I imagine most of you have come to UCSF – to be a part of a mission to advance health worldwide. I am inspired to join the FAS team to support the great work of UCSF’s world class faculty, researchers, clinicians and students as they collaborate to provide the best research, teaching, and patient care.
My past experience has led me to believe that major academic research institutions share many of the same issues - tight funding, insufficient space, complex processes, and the need to expand affordable campus life services, to name a few. While the business issues may be similar, it is a university’s culture which is unique. UCSF has a reputation of excellence – as our website states, “excellence is in our DNA.” I am looking forward to learning how UCSF’s culture sustains this excellence and what this means for each of you as we work together to support our noble mission.
While I take very seriously our collective role in supporting the UCSF mission, I trust that you will find me fairly informal and approachable. Please introduce yourself if you see me walking around campus.
I do not subscribe to any specific management approach, other than to let talented individuals and teams do what they are good at, providing support where needed.
I enjoy getting out of the office frequently and prefer, when possible, meeting on your home turf where I can experience your work team dynamic.
I am extremely curious and ask a fair number of questions. I do not profess to know all the right answers. However, collectively I believe we can find the right, or best answer for any situation we are asked to solve.
Finally, I understand our work is complex, challenging, and at times can be stressful. I find a great way to deal with this is with a healthy sense of humor, albeit one based in good taste. I hope you will agree.
In closing, I would like to offer a special thank you to Teresa Costantinidis who has been patiently teaching me the ways of UCSF and FAS. I plan to extend this learning by meeting with each of our FAS departments to better understand how I can support and lead the various activities of our teams across FAS. I look forward to our journey as we meet every new challenge with our culture of excellence to advance health worldwide.
Paul
Paul Jenny
Senior Vice Chancellor
Finance and Administration