Dear staff, fellows, residents and colleagues,
It is with mixed feelings that I announce the departure of Ms. Vicky Yau from her role as Director of Administration in the UBC Department of Psychiatry, as she has accepted a new administrative leadership position within the UBC Department of Family Practice. We will sorely miss Vicky and the outstanding support she has provided to the Department for over twenty years, yet we are thrilled for her as she embarks on this exciting new chapter of her career. While her final working day will be February 29, 2024, she has graciously agreed to provide support as needed during the weeks to follow as we recruit for this vacancy.
Vicky joined the UBC Faculty of Medicine in 2001, supporting UBC Psychiatry’s finance operations first as an Assistant and then as the Finance & Facilities Manager. In 2016, she moved into the role of Personnel and Business Operations Manager for the Department, where she assumed broader responsibilities that included our Facilities and Human Resources portfolios. Vicky was then promoted in 2018 to her current role as Director of Administration and has since provided superb strategic and operational oversight of the Department’s processes in HR, education, financial planning, space management, health and safety, strategic plan implementation, project management, policy development and implementation, IT and communications. With her relentless dedication and wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise, Vicky has done an incredible job in fulfilling the rigorous demands of her role while also building a high degree of trust with all Department members, fostering a positive work environment and a strong culture of cooperation, providing invaluable guidance and mentorship, and forming great relationships with not only our staff and faculty, but also with her colleagues and counterparts from external units across the Faculty of Medicine.
Simply put, Vicky has been an indispensable member of the Department and an amazing leader to our Administration team. On behalf of the entire UBC Department of Psychiatry, I wish to express to her my deep gratitude for her extraordinary contributions and tireless service over these many years. As we bid farewell to Vicky and as noted above, the Department will be initiating a hiring process in the coming days to fill this vacancy, and I hope to share updates on this effort in the very near future.
Please join me in warmly congratulating Vicky as she moves on to her new role in UBC Family Practice, and wishing her all the best in her future endeavours.
Sincerely,
Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, MBBS, FRCPC, MRCPsych (UK), MBA (Exec)
Professor and Head, UBC Department of Psychiatry
Director, Institute of Mental Health, UBC
Regional Head and Program Medical Director, VCH/PHC
The UBC Department of Psychiatry Administration Office respectfully acknowledges the land on which we live, work and play is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh).