Alyssa Williamson new Vice Chair for Administration and Finance

Last week, an announcement came out about our own Alyssa Williamson officially accepting the role as our permanent departmental VCFA (Vice Chair for Finance and Administration) effective September 1! Alyssa was chosen after an extensive and competitive nationwide search, and I could not be happier - hooray!

Alyssa has an impressive bio, but I want to give my thoughts on why I think we are so incredibly lucky as a department to have her on our executive leadership team.

She is incredibly brilliant when it comes to finances and clinical operations and strategy.

• She understands every part of the academic mission extremely well and has served on multiple system workgroups to address items that are vital to the DOM.
• She is crazy efficient and always 1-2 steps ahead of me.
• She and Jackie (our two interim department VCFAs during this transition period) have made my first couple months here so incredibly smooth and welcoming. In fact, when they both left on vacation during the same week last month, I had legitimate concerns about whether I could survive without this core team. 
• She has developed wonderful relationships across the department, UW SOM, and UW Medicine teams. 
• She has an impeccable work ethic and always goes above and beyond. 
• She is authentic and genuine, traits that I particularly appreciate and admire in leaders.
• She is kind, thoughtful, and deeply cares about the faculty and staff in the department.

I also want to take a moment and shout out Jackie Monroe for everything she has done for the DOM as co-interim VCFA for the past year. She is the epitome of grace under pressure, and we owe her an incredible debt of gratitude for her unwavering dedication to our faculty and staff. Jackie and Alyssa have been nothing short of the dream team. 

My wonderful experience with Alyssa and Jackie, while unique, is in fact not unique to the UW DOM. I have heard from many faculty members and faculty leaders how much they truly value their divisional dyad partners and the teams that work to submit their grants, manage their schedules, process their finances, recruit clinical trial patients, and answer all of their questions about HR, payroll, finance, and the countless other operations that make our Department function — this list goes on and on! 

Turns out there are many opportunities to recognize and thank our staff - from DOM shout outs to nominations for DOM awards and scholarships.

I look forward to meeting more staff members in the upcoming months, but in the meantime, I want to add my personal and heartfelt thanks for everything that you are doing for our department and for consistently showing up in ways that make a real difference.

With these teams in place, I have an incredible amount of hope and optimism that we will continue to strengthen our department in all missions and also have a lot of fun in the process. Please join me in congratulating Alyssa in her role and in thanking the staff for all of their hard work!

PS: I've discovered a few things that Alyssa and I share in common that will be important moving forward as a leadership team together:

• We both really like cookies and know how to cheer each other up with said cookies.
• We are both a fan of true crime and love to solve problems.
• We come to work everyday energized because of the amazing people and teams that surround us. 
• We both find humor and laughter therapeutic which is great because sometimes you just need colleagues to joke and laugh with.
• She is really really into Halloween and Halloween decorations. This one has less relevance to me except that I do like chocolate and gummy candy (why are nerd gummy clusters so addicting?!) so maybe I can go trick or treating at her house this year with my nephew. 

Biography

Alyssa has been a valued member of the Department of Medicine for more than five years and currently serves as Senior Director for Clinical Programs and Co-Interim Vice Chair, overseeing a $550 million annual budget and operations across 11 divisions. She joined the Department as a Division Administrator in Cardiology and has held leadership roles at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and Seattle Children’s Hospital. 

Alyssa has a longstanding connection to UW, having joined the University in 2012. Before her work in academic medical centers, she served as a senior consultant for what is now Vizient, a leading healthcare performance improvement company, where she partnered with dozens of health systems and hospitals across the country. 

Alyssa brings deep expertise in finance, clinical operations, strategy, and academic medicine, along with a strong understanding of the Department’s history and complexities. Her experience and leadership will be invaluable as she takes on this important role.