Finance Partner, Financial Services - Calgary, Canada - The University of Calgary

The University of Calgary

Verified Company

Calgary, Canada

2 weeks ago

Posted by:

Sophia Lee

beBee Recruiter

Description

Position Overview
The
Finance Services Team in
Finance is currently seeking a Full-time Regular
Finance Partner.

Reporting to the Associate Director, Finance Services, the Finance Partner leads the delivery of specialized financial services for members of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and assigned Faculty / Units.

The Finance Partner is assigned a portfolio of Faculty and/or Business Units with combined operating and internally restricted funds ranging between $50M and $100M.

This position is part of the Finance Services team and provides expert knowledge in the areas of strategic planning, sustainable budgeting, specialized management reporting, impactful variance reporting and forecasting, internal control assessment and implementation, process improvement, and the development of recommendations for corrective action or innovative opportunities to ensure portfolios remain on budget and on task.

The position requires an in-depth understanding of a varied, complex and quickly changing business, academic and research environment.

The position has comprehensive financial and budgetary responsibilities that require independent and sound judgement and decision-making abilities in a complex environment.

The incumbent will continuously assess and determine the optimum means which to add value at a strategic level in an environment where there is ambiguity, continuous change, and shifting / competing priorities.

There is a high volume of work requiring strong communication, leadership, facilitation, and client services skills.

The incumbent must work well under pressure and be able to communicate effectively with all levels of institutional and external stakeholders.

The position will provide direction and mentorship to other staff.

The Finance Partner has a key leadership role in the delivery of expert financial advice and guidance to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), and to varied stakeholders within assigned Faculty / Units.

The primary focus of this position is to provide strategic decision support to leadership to enable the achievement of critical university goals and objectives, while ensuring the short and long-term financial stability of the institution, its faculties, business units, departments, clinics and programs.

The Finance Partner leads the assessment, review, interpretation, and reporting of data collected through a variety of sources, systems and mediums.

The incumbent will interpret internal / external challenges and make recommendations developed through the lens of sound strategic thinking, planning, implementation, and evaluation.

The Finance Partner leads others to solve complex problems and difficult resource allocation decisions, and identification of innovative ways to achieve success.

The Finance Partner is responsible for ensuring that all planning, budgeting, forecasting, monitoring and ad-hoc reporting responsibilities are delivered in compliance with policies, rules and regulations of the University, as well as other legal and accounting requirements.

Position Description

Summary of Key Responsibilities (job functions include but are not limited to):

Gain an understanding of multiple complex areas in a relatively short period to collect, analyze and organize information, establish facts and make pragmatic, value-added recommendations.
Provide strategic decision support for Senior Leadership teams, ensuring leadership is apprised of all critical budgetary and financial issues, treating all matters with professionalism, sensitivity and confidentiality.
Lead the comprehensive annual planning and budget preparation process for assigned portfolios and review to ensure alignment and integration with the university's overall strategy and plans (e.g. Business Plan, Research Plan, Academic Plan, Enrollment Plan, etc.).
Lead the forecasting and planning process, including monthly budgettoactual variance analysis and forecast.
Lead all month / quarter / yearend financial activities within the Faculty / Unit in accordance with the institutions policies and procedures.
Work in partnership with stakeholders to continuously seek to improve financial processes and procedures within the Faculty / Unit by working with the financial process stream owners.
Develop proposals and business cases as required for new initiatives, and continuously review existing activities for process improvement and sustainability.
Provide a wide variety of ad hoc reporting and financial analysis to enable timely and effective decision making.
Serve as a conduit to share Faculty / Unit perspectives and ideas to integrate into institutional level planning, policy and procedure development.
Successful and timely completion of special assignments and projects that have institutionalwide impacts, including assessing, testing, key performance indicators, reporting, recommending, evaluation and feedback assessment (i.e. tuition allocation methodologies).
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