Associate Director, Finance

Associate Director, Finance

The Mendoza College of Business is seeking a strategic, collaborative, and technically skilled Associate Director of Finance to help leaders plan, understand, and steward financial resources in support of the College's academic mission.

In this role, you'll serve as a trusted finance partner to faculty leaders, academic directors, graduate program leaders, and College leadership. You'll lead financial planning and analysis for important graduate-program and faculty-facing portfolios, develop tools and reporting that turn complex financial information into clear insights, and help leaders make informed decisions about resources, priorities, and future opportunities.

This position is ideal for someone who enjoys both the technical and relational sides of finance. You'll work with financial models, accounting activity, reports, and data while also building strong relationships with faculty and administrative partners. As part of the Mendoza Finance Team, you'll contribute to a collaborative, service-oriented environment where accuracy, stewardship, communication, and continuous improvement are central to the work.

Reporting to the Director of Finance and Talent, the Associate Director of Finance serves as a senior individual contributor on the College's Finance Team. This role provides advanced financial planning, forecasting, analysis, reporting, accounting support, and decision support for a complex portfolio of graduate-program and faculty-facing financial activities.

Key Responsibilities:

• Independently manage the annual budget development, quarterly adjustment, monitoring, and forecasting processes for assigned academic programs, departments, graduate fellowships, and related funding streams. Own relationships with relevant stakeholders including faculty, academic directors, staff, and senior leaders.
• Execute key faculty financial cycles with accuracy, confidentiality, and consistency. Successfully manage the annual faculty merit process, Summer Research Grants, faculty research-related payments, and annual Research and Professional Activities account allocation and administration.
• Strengthen reporting, forecasting, and decision-support tools for the Finance Team and College leadership. Maintain and improve complex financial models, forecasting tools, dashboards, and reports using Excel, Google Sheets, Tableau, or related platforms. Success means financial data is easier to understand, variance drivers are visible, reporting is scalable and reliable, and leadership has better or more timely information.
• Advance process improvement, documentation, and internal controls across the role's portfolio to ensure: recurring processes are efficient and well-documented; financial expectations are understood by faculty, staff, and student partners; the Finance Team has stronger continuity and reduced operational risk.

Core Competencies:

• Advanced Financial Acumen - applies strong budgeting, forecasting, fund management, reporting, and accounting knowledge to support financial planning & stewardship.
• Analytical Judgment and Problem Solving - identifies trends, risks, inconsistencies, and opportunities in complex financial information and develops sound recommendations.
• Relationship Management and Communication - builds trust with stakeholders by communicating financial information clearly and effectively.
• Detail Orientation - exceptional attention to detail and a commitment to accuracy.
• Technical and Data Fluency - builds and improves accurate, scalable financial models, dashboards, and tools using Excel, Google Sheets, Tableau, or similar platforms.
• Discretion - manages sensitive financial and faculty-related work independently with sound judgment and confidentiality.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in finance, accounting, business administration, analytics, or a related field.
• Five or more years of progressively responsible experience in financial planning, budgeting, accounting, business analysis, financial operations, or related work.
• Demonstrated proficiency with accounting principles and financial transactions, including the ability to prepare and review journal entries, understand debits and credits, reconcile account activity, and ensure transactions are accurate, appropriately documented, and aligned with University financial policies.
• Demonstrated experience developing, maintaining, or improving financial models, forecasts, or complex budget tools.
• Strong analytical and technical skills, including advanced spreadsheet proficiency and the ability to work with detailed financial data.
• Ability to communicate financial information clearly to faculty, academic leaders, administrative partners, and senior leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple deadlines, annual processes, and stakeholder groups with a high degree of accuracy and discretion.
• Ability to work independently, identify issues, develop recommendations, and exercise sound judgment with sensitive financial and personnel-related information.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in higher education, academic finance, graduate-program finance, fund accounting, or nonprofit financial management.
• Experience with Tableau or similar business intelligence/reporting tools.
• Experience using Google Sheets and Excel to develop or maintain complex financial models.
• Experience supporting faculty, academic directors, centers, institutes, programs, or other complex stakeholder groups.
• Experience with financial modeling, scenario analysis, trend analysis, and decision-support tools that inform resource planning and decision-making.
• Advanced degree, CPA, MBA, or relevant certification preferred but not required.

Resume & cover letter are required to be considered for this position. Please add in the attachments section of your application. Pay range: Starting at $75,000, commensurate with experience. Please submit your application by August 9th. This position is an on-site position with the possibility of hybrid work location. Benefits page: