Sr Finance & Expense Analyst

About the Job

Support the Company's overall expense management process, focusing on ensuring optimal use of Company resources and ultimately protecting or maintaining product value and financial strength either at the corporate level or for an assigned function/department. Develop timely and accurate expense reporting and provide value-added expense management consultation and analysis. This includes consulting with business partners and building financial models to evaluate strategic decisions, providing complex financial analysis, developing forecasts and budgets, comparing expectations to peers and/or internal expectations, evaluating and presenting options and prioritizing solutions across the company.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Interacts with executive officers, department heads, and other members of senior management to provide meaningful expense management consultation and analysis and presents recommendations to aid in decision-making.
• Proactively identifies issues and facilitates discussions to resolve those issues across functions and departments.
• Independently meets with managers and directors to understand department operations and resulting cost structure.
• Coordinates monthly reporting of all expenses to meet financial reporting needs of the department.
• Monitors spend, develops forecasts and budgets and analyzes expense results.
• Applies creativity and innovation in identifying process improvements and other opportunities for the function/departments to better manage expenses or reduce spend.
• Responsible for building complex financial models to predict and understand the business as well as actual results. Understand cost drivers, internal metrics, unit costs and benchmarking for tracking and comparing results.
• Challenge assumptions made in forecasts and projections.
• Make connections to understand and integrate internal best practices to best support overall business objectives.
• Assures that all expense activity follows the appropriate accounting controls, policies and procedures and is appropriately accounted for on the general ledger in compliance with statutory and/or GAAP accounting standards.
• May be responsible for developing strategies to best utilize systems and maintaining expertise over financial reporting systems (Such as PeopleSoft, IBM TM1 system, Apptio, or Project Portfolio Management).
• May be responsible for corporate expense projections, metrics, accounting for payroll, fixed assets and intercompany charges between NM and its subsidiaries, procure to pay process or other corporate processes.
• Leads special projects and assignments related to expense management, product line allocations, financial reporting, process improvements, or other projects as requested by division leaders.
• Collaborates with other enterprise resources in Human Resources, Corporate Strategy or Planning Coordinators.

What You'll Bring to the Role

• Bachelor's degree in finance, business administration, accounting or related degree with accounting emphasis preferred.
• Typically, 5 or more years of financial management experience and/or financial planning and analysis experience.
• Strong analytical, planning, organization, budgeting, problem solving, negotiation, oral and written communication skills are essential to this role.
• Ability to develop and interpret financial models for complex analysis.
• Demonstrated ability to make effective decisions and influence without authority at all levels of leadership.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and manage multiple assignments concurrently while effectively prioritizing.
• Ability to develop and present recommendations to management.
• Ability to build rapport and acceptance at different levels of management and across various departments.
• CPA or CMA designation is preferred.

Skills You Have:

Storytelling through Data: Communicates insights and opportunities from a dataset, using narratives, visualizations, and analysis.

Attention to Detail: Focuses on specific details to spot and correct errors in advance of them being found and surpass quality expectations. Performs work with thorough proofreading for presentation, content, accuracy, and overall quality.

Expense Reporting Management: Tracks and documents the operational and other related costs by recording and classifying expenses to monitor and control costs, assess budget adherence, and evaluate the efficiency of resource utilization within the organization.

Financial Analysis: Analyzes balance sheet and income statement accounts to ensure accuracy, utilizes operational indicators, and actuarial information for comprehensive analysis. Interprets financial statements, draws conclusions, makes financial recommendations related to NM's products and services.

Financial Forecasting: Predicts and estimates future financial outcomes based on historical data, current trends, and informed assumptions. Utilizes various forecasting methods and techniques to select the most appropriate approach for different scenarios.

#LI Hybrid

Compensation Range:

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We believe in fairness and transparency. It’s why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you’re living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.

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Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.