Director of Residential Finance

Job Description

Job Description

Company Description

Auberge Collection is a portfolio of extraordinary hotels, resorts, residences and private clubs. While each property is unique, all share a crafted approach to luxury and bring the soul of the locale to life through captivating design, exceptional cuisine, innovative wellbeing, and gracious yet unobtrusive service. With 30 one-of-a-kind hotels, resorts, and residences, Auberge invites guests to create unforgettable stories in some of the world’s most desirable destinations.

For more information: auberge.com

Connect with Auberge Collection on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn @Auberge and #AlwaysAuberge

Job Description

The Director of Residential Finance serves as a strategic leader for all financial aspects of the organization’s residential operations, ensuring effective financial planning, robust internal controls, and compliance across residential projects and properties. The Director plays a key role in leading financial decision-making for residential initiatives, with a focus on accuracy, efficiency, and adherence to budgetary and regulatory requirements.   This role has a stronger partnership and working relationship with the Director of Residential Operations in oversight and strategy related to Residential Operations.

Primary areas of responsibility and oversight include developing and implementing an effective control environment, coordination of local compliance submissions, oversight of third-party transactional service partners, support of internal controls and audits, financial reviews for residential properties, strategic ownership of the annual budget planning, policy and procedure development for HOAs and all residential rental and finance programs, guidance and collaborates on technology solutions, property team training, and talent acquisition support and pre-opening planning and residential critical path. 

Key Responsibilities

Residential Financial Management Strategy

• Collaborate with operations and finance leaders to develop and effectively implement residential financial management strategies and processes.

• Ensure Auberge’s residential financial reporting conforms to the hotels’ respective accounting standards (i.e., US GAAP, IFRS, or other local standards) and management agreements.

• Develop and implement effective residential policies and procedures to maintain a strong internal control environment.

• Research, evaluate, recommend, and lead the implementation of residential technology solutions to create efficient and effective transaction processing and information sharing.

• Collaborate with Internal Audit and Operations Finance leadership to establish and regularly update audit and financial review checklists.

• Participate in annual continuing professional education on residential accounting matters and advise Auberge senior management on emerging industry accounting issues and best practices.

Third-Party Consultants & Services Management

• Develop a scope of services for potential third-party accounting service providers, and lead the bidding and evaluation process for contract negotiations.

• Oversee and manage relationships with third-party transactional and accounting service providers.

• Review negotiations of terms and contracts with third-party providers.

• Collaborate with the hotel finance team to adapt Auberge’s residential accounting policies and procedures into the third-party accounting provider’s services. Evaluate and document third party’s departures from Auberge’s policies and procedures. Develop SOPs and workflows integrating third-party services with internal processes.

• Provide support to property finance teams to resolve transactional issues.

Internal Control & Audit 

• Coordinate with property finance teams and the Director of Internal Audit on all audit activities.

• Review audit scope, reports, management letter, findings, and observations.

• Coordinate with teams on remediation plans and provide support.

• Continuously improve internal control processes for residential finance.

Residential Financial Management & Compliance

• Partner with the Director of Internal Audit to develop and update control standards related to residential accounting and rental programs.

• Oversee and document processes for the financial aspects of unit sales and ensure accurate transaction recording.

• Ensure rental management financial structure, agreements, and processes are set up and current

• Creating a process to review and audit residential rental accounting to ensure compliance with the rental management agreement and accuracy of the Auberge management fee calculation

• Understanding of rental agreements and rental accounting 

• Strategic involvement with finance and revenue management to understand and enhance rental revenue management

Board Communication & Reporting

• Work with the property team with Boards of Directors when home office engagement is necessary.

• Attend financial meetings with Boards of Directors when support of material residential financials issues or  Auberge Brand programs is required.   Attendance should not be regular in nature.

Budgeting & Financial Planning Oversight

• Manage the annual budget timeline and schedules.

• Partner with Directors of Finance and Corporate Finance Operations to ensure hotel and residential budgets and allocations balance and tie between the multiple entities.

• Develop tools, templates, and processes that support a global structure and provide consistency to include validation of residential rental revenue and calculation of residential owner payments.

• Review property operating and capital budgets for accuracy and alignment.

• Validate management fee calculations and exclusions.

• Oversee homeowner assessment billing process for accuracy and compliance.

Training, Policies & Team Development

• Develop relevant training programs for property finance teams.

• Collaborate with the Regional Director of Finance to onboard and familiarize Directors of Finance and Finance Managers with residential accounting policies and procedures.

• Conduct training on residential accounting policies, procedures, and month-end processes.

• Lead monthly residential finance meetings with internal stakeholders.

Leadership & Talent Acquisition

• Provide leadership and mentorship to residential property finance teams.

• Participate in interviews for Directors of Finance and other positions that interface with Residential Finance.

• Participate in interviews with Directors of Finance where residential finance exists or could be added in the future.

• Support strategic workforce planning and succession planning within residential finance.

• Leads global residential financial strategy and identifies opportunities to drive excellence, consistency, and support scaling of new properties.

Pre-Opening Budget Planning and Critical Path

• Develop and maintain the master residential finance critical path

• Provide guidance on the structure of Homeowners Associations (HOAs) and expense allocation.

• Setup rental program accounting processes, as necessary

• Partner with IT and Finance Operations systems team on systems selection and rollout

• Support required local and state jurisdiction financial submissions.

• Monitor and support completion of critical path with property leadership

• Review pre-opening expenses to ensure categorized properly and initial filings and submissions are completed accurately.

• Partner with consultants, development and operations teams to create and review pre-opening budgets.

Qualifications

• Accounting designation desirable.

• CPA, CMA, or CAI CMCA (Certified Manager of Community Associations) license highly preferred.

• University degree – major in accounting or finance preferred; MBA or graduate degree ideal.

• Extensive financial experience in residential rental programs / HOA / fractional ownership required.

• Five  years of experience in leadership roles in hotel accounting & finance. 

• Luxury hotel experience is not required, though strongly preferred.

• Area or Regional multi-property management experience preferred.

Skills and abilities

Behavioral 

• Ability to create, effectively communicate, and implement residential accounting strategies. 

• Liaison for Executive Committee and DOFs with respect to Corporate Accounting/Policy related matters.

• Ability to implement new policies and procedures better aligning organizational needs.

• Strong interpersonal and relationship-building skills to work with cross-functional teams; to negotiate for resources and influence stakeholders; and to gain acceptance of and commitment to plans, ideas, initiatives, etc.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to prepare and deliver reports, effective presentations and to facilitate meetings.

• Promoter of a continuous learning environment that creates an atmosphere for professional development opportunities.

• Apply an ethical approach to influence the outcome of situations.

• Serve as a role model for others by demonstrating appropriate business conduct and ethical principles.

• Continuously seek to improve/develop the performance of others and continuously strive to improve his/her own performance.

• Strong problem solving, decision making, conflict resolution and strategic thinking skills.

• Strong leadership and communication skills

Technical

Experience and knowledge of:

• Strong knowledge of US GAAP for Common Interest Realty Associations (“CIRA”) and fund accounting.

• HOA governing documents

• Residential focused financial reporting systems

• Residential focused policies and procedures

• The Uniform System of Accounts for Hotels

• Hotel/Residential and Rental Management Agreements

• PCI Security Compliance rules

• A strong knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles, managing intercompany transactions,  and job knowledge of all positions in accounting and purchasing. knowledge of taxation, labor, and legal matters related to hotel and residential community management. 

• Ability and knowledge to operate computer equipment and software.

• Ability to read, speak, and write English fluently. Additional language abilities are highly desirable.

• Sound knowledge of financial reporting and accounting rules within the region (GAAP, Tax, Fiscal Policy)

• Solid cost analysis and financial budget management skills

• Strong cash forecasting and management skills

• Ability to develop effective internal controls through creating policies and procedures, talent selection and development, and implementation of appropriate financial technology solutions.

• Understanding of residential and mixed-use accounting

Additional Information

About Friedkin:

Friedkin is a privately held family of global brands spanning automotive, entertainment, hospitality, investments, and sports. 

Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Houston, Texas, the company is led by Chief Executive Dan Friedkin, and united by a mission to build breakthrough brands that redefine the status quo.

The Friedkin portfolio includes Gulf States Toyota, 30WEST, Accelerated Solutions Group, AS Roma, Ascent Automotive Group, Auberge Collection, Congaree, Copilot Capital, Diamond Creek, Everton Football Club, GSFSGroup, Imperative Entertainment, Legendary Expeditions, NEON, Northside Lexus, Pursuit Sports, The Friedkin Group International, USAL and Westside Lexus. For more information, please visit

Auberge Collection LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer, M/F/D/V. Auberge Collection LLC provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all team members and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Auberge Collection LLC complies with applicable state and local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.