Anissa Nachman is the Director of Budget Operations and Administrative Budget for UC Davis and oversees a variety of financial activities including multi-year financial models and funding requests.

When did you join the university?
I started with Budget & Institutional Analysis in September 2011.

What's your day-to-day role in stewarding university resources?
As the Director for Budget Operations and Administrative Budget, I am focused on the campus’ financial health on a daily basis.  BIA is responsible for a variety of activities – from developing multi-year financial models to providing recommendations to campus leadership on funding requests to simply figuring out how best to move funds from one account to another – and while the answers aren’t always easy, I’m fortunate to have such a great group of colleagues to work with.

What's an example of how you delight customers?
I get to work with folks from a variety of campus units and regardless of the unit or the issue; I think that the most important things to remember are to be responsive, to listen and fully understand the issue from the unit’s perspective, and to communicate throughout the process.  These things aren’t particularly unique to me, however, as BIA has a tradition of working collaboratively with campus units.  I do add my own brand of humor to the process, though – I find humor tends to help when delivering potentially unpopular news.

What do you like best about working at UC Davis?
I am never bored.  UC Davis does so many different things – in any given day, I could be working on issues relating to anything from classroom space to the new Shrem Museum of Arts to Intercollegiate Athletics to the Natural Reserve System – and everything in between.  I am constantly learning new things.

What's the most challenging part of your job?
The most challenging part of my job is that there will never be enough money to support all of the great things people want to do. We deal with that challenge by providing strong analytical support to leadership so that they can make informed decisions on how best to use our scarce resources. And I drink a lot of Diet Coke.

Tell us one thing about yourself that most people wouldn't know.
I love animals. Growing up, my passion was horses and I spent most of my summers on a horse farm.  I wanted to be an Olympic horse eventer when I grew up – as well as the first female New York Yankee (I grew up in NYC) and first female President. Not really looking promising for any of those things now!

What's something you like to do when you aren't at work?
I love sports and being active.  If I’m not running, I’m either coaching one of my daughter’s sports, playing sports with my daughter, or watching sports (basketball and baseball being my favorite).   My husband refers to himself as a basketball widow during the NBA finals – and I do feel badly for him – my daughter and I are very vocal during games!