Associate Vice President, Financial Planning and Analysis

Compensation Range:

Position Summary

The Associate Vice President, Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) leads and drives National University’s financial planning processes, with a focus on building planning and forecasting tools, enhancing accuracy, and streamlining processes. Serves as a strategic partner to senior leadership, delivering actionable financial insights that drive swift, data-driven decision-making. Leads a small high-performing FP&A team, with a focus on developing the team to support the university’s mission and vision while fostering a culture of accountability, precision, and adaptability. Ensures the timely execution of critical financial tasks and process improvements to enable timely decision-making and support the university’s long-term strategic goals.

Essential Functions:

Leadership, Team Performance, & Influence

• Drive long-term financial strategy, aligning financial planning with institutional goals, market trends, and regulatory requirements.
• Serve as a strategic partner and advisor to executive and senior leadership, delivering fast, actionable financial insights that drive rapid, data-backed decision-making.
• Collaborate with academic and operational leaders to align financial planning with departmental needs and priorities.
• Develop and maintain a multi-year financial roadmap to support growth, innovation, and risk mitigation.
• Lead and inspire a high-performing FP&A team to meet tight deadlines with a high degree of accuracy.
• Establish a culture that prioritizes speed, accountability, and precision in all financial processes.
• Oversee the strategic planning process, including setting objectives, defining key performance indicators (KPIs), and establishing metrics for measuring success.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of FP&A directors, and their team(s) of analysts, fostering a high-performance culture, ensuring professional growth, and that the team’s skill sets evolve to meet business needs.

Optimized Reporting & Analytics

• Implement enhanced financial reporting tools and dashboards that improve both speed and visibility into key metrics, enabling the leadership team to make informed decisions faster.
• Develop flexible and scalable financial models that facilitate quick scenario analysis, allowing for rapid adjustments in strategy based on real-time data and market conditions.

Accelerated Financial Planning

• Own the budgeting and forecasting processes, significantly reducing cycle times while ensuring alignment with the company’s strategic objectives.
• Deliver reliable forecasts quickly and efficiently.
• Identify and deploy automation tools to ensure scalability and efficiency without sacrificing accuracy.
• Drive change management initiatives that streamline reporting cycles and reduce manual processes, ensuring adoption of financial best practices and continuous process improvement across departments.
• Conduct complex scenario planning and risk assessment modeling to guide leadership in navigating operational challenges.

Variance & Performance Analysis

• Oversee in-depth variance analysis with a focus on delivering timely insights into revenue, headcount, operating, capital expenditures, and cash flow.
• Proactively identify trends and deviations to support immediate business decisions and corrective actions.
• Lead financial due diligence for strategic partnerships and funding initiatives, providing leadership with critical insights on potential opportunities.
• Establish performance KPIs, ensuring real-time access to critical data for informed decision-making.

Ad-hoc Analysis

• Respond quickly to requests for financial analysis, providing accurate, high-quality insights under tight deadlines to support the company’s evolving priorities.
• Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Supervisor duties include hire, train, and develop two (2) directors and indirectly two (2) senior financial analysts.

Requirements:

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, business, or related field required.
• MBA required.
• Minimum of twelve (12) years of experience in financial planning, analysis, or similar roles, required.
• Minimum of six (6) years leadership experience with focused on driving faster, more efficient processes required.
• Experience in higher education preferred.
• Experience working in a technology-driven enterprise preferred.
• All skills, abilities and education will be considered for minimum qualifications.

Competencies/Technical/Functional Skills:

• Deep understanding of financial principles, data analysis, and forecasting techniques.
• Ability to ensure the accuracy and reliability of financial data, while aligning financial strategies with overall business objectives and adapting to market changes. 
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to partner with senior leadership and cross-functional teams to drive faster results.
• Advanced leadership skills. Actively seeks to influence, build effective relationships, and gain alignment with peers, functional partners, and senior/executive leadership to accomplish business objectives.
• Acts as a role model. Anticipates and plans for change. Communicates vision to the team. Ability to lead, direct and/or influence others to obtain results using a wide degree of creativity and latitude. Working knowledge in building teams. Advanced leadership skills.
• Proven ability to excel in high-pressure environments while maintaining impeccable attention to detail as well as leading teams in fast-paced environments, delivering both speed and accuracy in financial reporting and analysis.
• Aptitude to drive towards achieving measurable and challenging goals to support organizational success. Demonstrate the ability to focus on achieving results consistent with the organization’s objectives. Ability to develop goals based on the organization’s vision, mission and strategic goals and objectives.
• Advanced interpersonal skills and the ability to effectively communicate with a wide range of individuals from a diverse community. Ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing while providing excellent customer service.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a keen focus on rapid execution.
• Ability to make informed, data-driven decisions in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated success in significantly reducing financial forecasting and reporting cycle times.
• Expertise in financial reporting tools and systems (e.g., Workday, Adaptive Insights) and experience implementing process automation.
• Expert Microsoft Excel skills with a strong track record of building and implementing financial models.
• Demonstrated track record of iterating and improving models over time, both for accuracy, speed, and additional detail capabilities.
• Develops new insights into situations; questions conventional approaches; encourages new ideas and innovations; designs and implements new or cutting-edge processes. Ability to generate and/or recognize imaginative or creative solutions that generate successful outcomes.
• Able to cultivate a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Demonstrated ability to identify key financial trends, risks, and opportunities, and translate financial insights into actionable recommendations. 
• Advanced use of computers and Microsoft Office Suite Applications such as Word, Excel, Power Point, and Outlook.

Location: Remote

Travel: Some Travel Required (10%)

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Candidate receiving offers will be offered a salary/pay rate commensurate with experience that vary based on a candidate’s qualifications, skills, and competencies.  Absent exceptional circumstances, candidates will be offered a salary within this range for this position. The minimum salary will be offered based on the minimum exemption threshold based on state of residency. Base pay is one component of National University’s total rewards package, as we are dedicated to supporting the needs of the “whole you” with our holistic approach to employee benefits by offering comprehensive well-being benefits for you and your family.  For full details about our benefit plan offerings, please visit benefits.nu.edu. For Part-time benefits, please click here.

National University is committed to maintaining a high-quality, diverse workforce representative of the populations we serve. National University employs more than 5,000 faculty and staff and serves over 41,000 students. We are united in our mission to meet the global education demands of the 21st Century and are dedicated to creating a supportive academic and work environment that allows students, faculty and staff to develop their interests and talents while experiencing a sense of community and a commitment to diversity. With programs available both online and at our many campus locations, National University is a leader in creating innovative solutions to education and meeting the needs of our diverse student population, including adult learners and working professionals.

National University offers an opportunity to work in an innovative environment that supports diversity.

National University (NU) is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any employee or applicant per applicable federal, state and local laws. At NU, a diverse mix of highly talented, innovative and creative people come together to make the impact of a lifetime for each of our student learners. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment, education, and admission at National University. We are focused on equality and believe deeply in diversity of race, color, ancestry, age, family care status, veteran status, marital status, creed, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin, and other legally protected group status.