As the only candidate running for the position, it’s pretty much guaranteed that Louis Retief is going to be next year’s VP Finance. Retief is a third-year finance student from Chilliwack who, for the past 10 months, has worked as the associate VP Finance under the wing of current VP Finance Mateusz Miadlidowski. In this position, Retief mainly worked with the clubs and constituencies of the AMS through helping them manage their finances.
Describe your platform and what sets it apart from your opposition in a few sentences.
I want to implement more workshops and training programs for financial literacy and leadership training, and also overall organization for your club. Secondly, one of the projects I’ve been working on this year is FIN (Financial-Tech Initiatives) technologies. [They] will really empower students to get their finances under control with their clubs. So that’s my platform for clubs. [My plan for] constituencies, secondly, is increasing AMS business revenue to increase social programming. A lot of our social programming – student services, resource groups – a lot of the funding comes from businesses succeeding. First would be a reevaluation of the businesses … another way to increase social programming would be re-evaluation of the current fee structure.
How have you been involved with the AMS before and how will this help you?
I’ve been in the VP Finance portfolio for a year. Right now, what I really bring to the table is I can hit the ground running — I don’t have to do any learning [or] any research for the summer months. If I get elected, I [can] continue with the projects Matt and myself have been working on and [can] also start working on new projects I already have ideas for.
What are the challenges facing this position in the upcoming year?
There’s a couple big challenges, first being the current reimbursement process for clubs and constituencies. This process hasn’t changed for years — it’s still paper-based in the 21st century, that’s absolutely ridiculous. The second challenge is obviously AMS businesses [and] the current deficit we stand at. Coming into this year, whoever budgeted basically didn’t budget properly. They overstated revenues for businesses, the overhead increased a lot with the new building and it wasn’t budgeted for properly. First is conferencing and catering. With the new building, we had a lot more bookable spaces for clubs — which was awesome — and clubs really did succeed with all this extra space, but it did cost a lot extra from the AMS to basically set up, take down and give free booking spaces. So just proper budgeting for that, which wasn’t done this year. Secondly is properly budgeting the AMS businesses’ revenue. Thirdly, the way I’m gonna fix [the deficit] is through restructuring the fee structure to make the fees more flexible so we can really allocate them accordingly year to year.
What was something your predecessor did that you agreed with and one that you disagreed with?
Matt was really good at working with the managing staff — he got along with everyone really well in the office. He was always there, he was super vocal. People could always reach him at the office. I’d say he did a good job at working with businesses and he had a really good overview of how the AMS worked because he’s been in the position for two years. What he hasn’t done really well … he didn’t work very closely with clubs and constituencies. He kind of let me do that and that’s why there’s been an improvement with us this year. He just didn’t pay much attention to it. Because I was in the position, I feel like that wasn’t a problem, but I would have liked to see him [pay] more attention to how clubs and constituencies’ finances are run through the AMS.
Who is the most important body or person you need to collaborate with in this position and how will you foster a relationship with them?
I’m gonna have to work very closely with two of the executives, mainly being the president and also the VP Administration. The VP Administration works very closely with the VP Finance on how clubs and constituencies are run. If I want to implement my changes, I really have to be able to work closely with the VP Administration and they have to have the same vision [and] ideas with me so we can really make an organizational change with clubs and constituencies and help them. Secondly is the president — the president is the one I’m going to be sitting with on ABBA and making those decisions for businesses.
Interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.