Haberman joins Business Process Improvement Office

Earlier this month, Amy Haberman joined the Office of the CFO as the assistant director for the Business Process Improvement Office. In the new position, which is entirely devoted to business process improvement, Haberman reports to Lisa Deal, assistant vice president and chief procurement officer, and will be responsible for fostering the university’s transition to a Lean culture (see CFO message to learn more).

Before starting in this role, Haberman served as the director of Safety in UF’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering for six years. With a degree in Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health, Haberman has worked in higher education and industry and brings vast experience and expertise to the role.

In her prior positions, Haberman built a culture of safety by empowering colleagues with the tools and resources they needed to integrate risk assessments as a key element of their everyday operations, independent of inspections. One of her former mottos was “connect not inspect,” and it’s a philosophy that continues to guide her work. After many years focused on occupational and environmental health, she realized that the heart of her work was continuous improvement and decided to apply her expertise beyond the world of safety.

“I wanted to broaden my impact, and this was the first position I saw that really met that goal,” said Haberman, who is originally from Wisconsin. “The position really resonated with me. By developing a Lean culture on campus to foster a mindset of continuous improvement in all that we do, the position was conveying, ‘Come help us make UF better.’ It’s exciting that UF is invested in and embracing this new way of thinking. If we’re bringing in the right stakeholders and engaging people in the right way, this will happen organically.”

Haberman says that these efforts are about creative thinking and risk taking, which are essential in UF’s Strive for Five.

Outside of work, Haberman enjoys doing CrossFit, Olympic weightlifting, painting, traveling and spending time with her 11-year-old daughter, Alyssa, and husband, Mark, who works in UF’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.