Analyst - Financial Planning & Analysis

Analyst, Financial Planning & Analysis

Location: Atlanta GA

Are you looking to join a hungry and humble team of thinkers, creators, and achievers? You’ve come to the right place. 

Jackson Spalding is an award-winning PR and marketing agency that helps brands stand out to move those who matter most. 

Fiercely creative and strategic, we work alongside our clients to help them connect with their audience and reach their goals. Jackson Spalding was built on the principle that there had to be a better way to run an agency. That means that we stay curious, have an open mind and ask questions to make sure we consistently achieve excellence with integrity. 

ABOUT THE ROLE 

The Analyst, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) plays a key role in supporting Jackson Spalding (JS) by providing value-added financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting; operational analysis; KPI driven analytics and trends; benchmarking and executive level reporting ; and other ad-hoc analysis to enhance decision making. The Analyst will be responsible for building forecasting models to identify future risks, participate in the month-end close process, and maintain the integrity and accuracy of the financial statements.

This role also will be responsible for supporting JS’ operational business units (i.e., Disciplines) and client account teams, acting as a financial resource and helping them to analyze, manage, grow, and optimize their functions and accounts. This involves:

• building partnerships and maintaining strong relationships with internal teams

• managing planning processes, developing key management reporting/ dashboards, thought leadership on analytics / reporting architecture, and

• providing general finance support for assigned functions. 

The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, analytical, and a strong communicator—curious, focused, and able to balance quality with accuracy. The Analyst is an organized, efficient self-starter who works with minimal supervision and demonstrates strong time management and multitasking skills.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Business Support and Analysis

• Proactively work with assigned Disciplines to provide financial management and decision-making support including the allocation of resources against strategic objectives 

• Effectively leverage financial information to provide the business timely insight into business performance and opportunities for growth

• Conduct strategic and analytical projects in collaboration with Discipline and key account team leads to reach business growth and goals while staying within budget, which may include identifying ideal client team structures, optimizing internal processes, etc.

• Produce variance analyses to provide transparency to leaders on how actual performance compares against forecasts and budget

Budgeting and Forecasting

• Perform in-depth financial variance and trending analyses of key drivers, including detailed margin analysis to identify key trends, risks, and opportunities

• Work closely with internal teams to inform headcount and hiring decisions 

• Collaborate with CFO to inform near- and long-term financial forecasts, which includes developing annual, quarterly, and monthly financial forecasts

• Partner with Accounting on month-end close to ensure accuracy and completeness of revenue, expenses, and explanations of variances to plan

Reporting

• Lead the development, maintenance, and publication/distribution of relevant and reliable daily, weekly, and monthly performance reporting and analysis of financial and non-financial data

• Compile monthly, quarterly, and annual variance analysis and dig into variances; identify risks and opportunities to the budget and forecast 

• Drive initiatives to continuously improve and automate forecasting and reporting tools and processes

• Leverage business intelligence (BI) tools to deliver meaningful insights into business performance, both internally and externally; maintain relationships with BI tool vendors

• Perform ad-hoc analysis and financial modeling in support of key initiatives and required analytics

QUALIFICATONS

• 4+ years of FP&A or corporate finance experience

• BA/BS degree in Finance, Accounting or Economics required

• Excellent interpersonal, oral/written communication skills, with the ability to build trusted relationships with business stakeholders and “tell the story” using financial information

• Strong analytical skills and demonstrated expertise in financial modeling, reporting and budgeting 

• Ability to clearly link financial results/outcomes to operational performance drivers, while maintaining a high level of integrity, accuracy and ethics, accuracy and precision in your work; be able to maintain confidentiality

• General understanding of professional services or marketing agency business model and key drivers, including setting billable rates and optimizing utilization

• Excellent Microsoft Office skills, more specifically an expert with Excel

• Experience with enterprise resource planning systems primarily used in a professional services environment (e.g., Advantage)

• Demonstrated adoption of modern tools for business analytics, such as planning systems, data analysis, and visualization/dashboard tools (Ex: Domo) and willingness to continue learning new approaches

• Proficiency with AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude

• General understanding of accounting processes, procedures, and internal controls

• Positive collaborative team player with eagerness to learn and add value to the team and organization.

• Self-starter who will take initiative; independent in work ethic and thought process, needing little direction

• Agility and flexibility to manage multiple, changing priorities and work under tight deadlines

This role may require occasional travel. This role is also on a hybrid schedule with in-office presence on Tuesday – Wednesday - Thursday. 

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS 

We believe that great work starts by taking care of our people. Below are just some of the benefits we provide for the JS team.    

• World-class health care insurance   

• Profit sharing   

• Unlimited sick days    

• 401k match + personal financial planning   

• Flexible work environment: This means that for roles where it makes sense, you’ll have the option to spend some of your time in our incredible workspaces and some of your time working remotely – whether from home or elsewhere.   

ABOUT JACKSON SPALDING 

Jackson Spalding is a public relations and marketing agency that helps brands break through to earn measurable audience attention, affinity and action. Through its integrated PR, digital marketing, advertising, brand strategy and creative services, the agency helps organizations better share their stories. Jackson Spalding was founded in 1995 with a vision to be the most trusted and respected agency in the industry and is proudly independently owned. With offices located in Atlanta, Dallas, and Athens, Ga., Jackson Spalding’s clients include celebrated brands like Chick-fil-A, The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Air Lines, Google, L.L.Bean, Orkin, Primrose Schools, among others.

EEO 

At Jackson Spalding, we embrace and celebrate our differences. They are what inspire, unite, and motivate us to strive for a better way.   In alignment with our purpose to cultivate meaningful relationships rooted in mutual respect, we are dedicated to fostering a sense of belonging throughout our agency. Jackson Spalding is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.   We do not discriminate in any aspect of employment against any person on account of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.   

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