Director, FP&A

As our Director, Financial Planning & Analysis, you will…

Be Accountable and Responsible

We are seeking a motivated finance professional to take responsibility for a wide variety of core FP&A functions, both analytical and strategic in nature.  This role will be a strategic partner for the CFO, agency leaders, and ownership as they evaluate resource needs, plan the monthly business activity and drive process improvements in the business.  This position will be at the center of preparing many of our critical financial analyses and executive level presentations while also presenting the opportunity to provide insight and create business partnerships with MERGE functional leaders to improve efficiency and drive growth. 

MERGE is in an accelerating phase of growth and transformation with an increasing need for dynamic and actionable information and insight.  Experience in implementing and/or enhancing a business intelligence and data visualization system is an asset.  

All employees are expected to be active members of the growing team and be flexible in assisting the company as it grows organically and through M&A activity. The following duties provide a framework for the position as defined today with growth opportunities for tomorrow.

• Executive Decision Support: Support the executive decision-making process by leading in-depth financial/ strategic analyses, interpreting results, and articulating actionable recommendations that support the growth, increase profitability, and maximize shareholder value
• Thought leadership: Understand and recommend the integration of industry KPI’s and metrics and analysis to help improve and evolve the understanding of the key drivers of the business in order to push stronger performance and deeper knowledge among key leaders
• Business Partner: Understand what’s driving growth and profitability at a client, project level and at a business unit level.  Communicate and provide action-oriented insight and analytics and KPI’s to assist the client account management teams to increase efficiency, inform resource capacity and pricing for profitable growth. Partner with department leadership to ensure business decisions are made with all relevant information
• Drive accuracy and timeliness of forecasting, consolidation, and reporting of financial results: Analyze and report financial results at month-end, including revenue and cost variance analysis; Consolidate forecast across all divisions, identifying key variances to prior year, prior forecast, and budget; Reconcile actual results to forecast expectations.  
• Mergers and Acquisition Support:  MERGE is in growth mode and acquisitions are a likely part of this role.  Activities may involve industry analysis and assessment of potential acquisition targets, due diligence in assessing identified targets, and working closely with internal leadership, ownership and external advisors in completing acquisitions.  Specific responsibilities may include setup and management of datarooms, coordinating and fulfilling information requests, preparation of requested reports/information, and preparing transition and integration plans
• Budget, Forecast and Reporting: Key role in the annual budgets, quarterly forecasts and ad-hoc updated and requests across all divisions, including understanding of key revenue and expense drivers to drive growth and profitability.  A key role in preparation of monthly Board and Bank reporting  
• Systems assessment, and ownership: Serve in a leading role in consolidating key financials and conducting financial analysis in our financial consolidation platform/business intelligence platform.  Key role in all aspects of system administration for the company wide ERP system and intimate involvement in ongoing systems assessment.   
• Client finance & resource management support. Work closely with the client finance group to support key network clients in areas such areas as new and renewal contracts, pricing, and profitability.  Lead the centralization and management of annual client contractual obligations, including client rebates and/or incentive opportunities.

These are the qualifications we’re looking for

• Bachelor’s Degree in Finance or Accounting
• 7+ years of related experience
• Excellent communication (written & verbal) skills and a Team player, pitching in to accelerate a more timely, accurate close
• Ability to work independently and multi-task a large volume of projects and tasks with high attention to detail and strong problem-solving skills
• Ability to be accountable to a timeline and delivering accurately
• Driven, committed with the ability to complete tasks on a timely basis with a high degree of accuracy 
• Skilled at finding more efficient ways to work, including helping others work smarter 
• Experience with financial reporting/ budgeting tools a plus (e.g. BI platforms)
• Comfortable with and history as a power-user of GL/accounting/financial systems 
• Advanced Excel skills required (e.g. pivot tables, advanced functions, macros) 
• Proven ability to work with disparate data sets and synergies the data
• Understanding of GAAP standards
• Experience in professional service firm environment
• Flexibility to meet continuously changing priorities and challenges
• Ability to succeed in a fast-paced environment

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