Office of the Chief Financial Officer

How does the Office of the Chief Financial Officer support the Lab’s mission?

We provide critical services such as paying employees, buying goods and services, providing travel and conference services, supporting divisional financial management and reporting, and stewarding funds management for the institution. Working with our research areas, we contribute to the Lab’s mission.

What are OCFO’s top 3 or 4 current priorities?

The first is acquisition lifecycle risk management since approximately 40% of the Lab’s annual spending is on goods and services. The growth in projects such as ESNet6, NERSC9, ALS-U, NAWI, and QSA, to name a few, are procurement-intensive projects. Research work and major project success depend on getting suitable goods and services at competitive prices when they are needed while meeting fiduciary obligations. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our process.

Next is creating a robust and flexible infrastructure to support planning by streamlining the budget process and systems to improve speed, accuracy, quality of insights, and forecast accuracy to make better business decisions.

Financial-related planning directly impacts the Lab’s mission and ability to manage both direct funds and overhead effectively. The Lab’s funding portfolio has an increasing presence of large-scale projects and scientific initiatives dependent on effective financial multi-year planning. Financial-related planning happens both within the OCFO and across central and distributed financial functions.

Strategic planning activities and systems aren’t well-integrated, and many are outdated in their ability to address the Lab’s new strategic planning environment. Increasing visibility and pressure on infrastructure and scientific projects have identified functionality gaps in the Lab’s primary Financial Management System (FMS) planning system, pricing tools, and integrations to the Lab’s Earned Value Management System (EVMS). Addressing those gaps and improving planning tools will improve the OCFO’s ability to manage funds, forecast overhead collections, and forecast Lab funding and spending trends. Additionally, it will provide better support to our PIs and Area and Division management for funds management and forecasting.

The third major goal is our people. We want to train our staff with the knowledge and skills to provide strategic support to our customers. We want to enhance the skills of our employees to enable strategic and analytical support that is critical to our customers making sound financial decisions. In addition, we want to enhance OCFO’s IDEA program. The OCFO continuously strives to incorporate the principles of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accountability into all aspects of our work lives. We believe doing so will create a work environment that fosters collaboration, respect, engagement, and innovation. This will enable the OCFO to recruit, retain, and develop the best people to provide the high-value financial and procurement services and strategic solutions that contribute to the Laboratory’s research and stewardship mission.

Who do you partner with at the Lab to be successful?

We start with the research areas. We provide services to all the divisions at the Lab. To meet the needs of our customers, we need to partner with them and understand their business needs, their challenges such as scope, budget, and schedule, along with any sponsors’ requirements. Additionally, we rely on services and support from our fellow Operations divisions, including IT with systems support. OCFO depends on a large number of applications to enable our productivity.

We also work closely with HR. Ninety-eight percent of the OCFO budget is labor costs, so we need the help and support of our HR colleagues to help us attract, retain, and develop the best workforce possible. Since our group in OCFO are mostly computer workers, we depend on EHS, especially their ergonomic experts, to ensure we work safely.