Senior Financial Analyst

Ascend Learning is a national leader in data driven, online educational solutions for learners, educators and employers in high-growth, licensure-driven professions spanning healthcare, fitness and wellness, skilled trades, insurance and financial services. We are passionate about accelerating learning while impacting job readiness, employment success and employee retention with the belief that our work changes lives.

Our culture is intentionally results-driven and selfless with a relentless focus on our customers. We believe in trust, transparency, freedom and responsibility with a commitment to meritocracy, inclusion and diversity of thought. Continual investment in our over 1400 employees is also a core principle realized through ongoing professional development and providing opportunities to grow, develop and lead.

Ascend Learning is seeking a Sr. Financial Analyst of Corporate FP&A. This role is a key player within our Corporate FP&A team, which is building a scalable process and system foundation for planning, reporting and analysis to provide critical information and insights for decision making. This is a high-impact team interacting directly with the CFO and other leaders to shape the future of a company that is a market leader in education technology for healthcare, fitness, and wellness.

The Corporate FP&A function is transforming, having recently implemented a standard reporting and analytics tool that provides a foundation for the next phase of transformation where we continue building out analytics to drive and support business decision making.

Success in this role requires you to:

• Bring outstanding analytical capabilities. You will quickly learn our business drivers, what is important to analyze, and be able to concisely communicate both verbally and visually critical business insights
• Support the standardization and harmonization of processes and procedures for FP&A activities, while always looking for ways to make work more efficient and innovating new ways to drive insights for the business.
• Build knowledge of business process and data flow as it pertains to business drivers; make recommendations for process, tool, or data flow changes to enhance information.

Key Responsibilities:

• Prepare reports and analytics on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis that enable decision making by the business; highlight important takeaways visually and in concise executive summaries
• Perform reporting and financial analyses at multiple levels of complexity, including top-line, expense, and margin analysis
• Collect, organize, and analyze data sets to create meaningful analyses that drives insights; not just financial line-item variances
• Model budget, forecast and long-range plans, summarizing variances, risks and opportunities; use business judgment to determine when to 'double click' and drill into underlying detail
• Streamline reporting packages and make recommendations for improvements
• Support preparation of Board, senior leadership team, lender, and other reporting, including appropriate analysis, to derive and present business insights
• Partner closely and build trust with accounting and finance teams across Ascend; this team is an important and influential partner across the company

Skills:

• Strong analytical capability combined with data, visualization, and presentation skills to present executive level information and inspire action
• Advanced excel and PowerPoint skills. Planful or other FP&A tool capability, Microsoft BI or Tableau background a plus
• High results orientation with ability to manage multiple deliverables while maintaining attention to detail and quality output
• Collaborative working style that builds trust within organization
• Understanding of GAAP reporting standards

Qualifications

• A bachelor's degree in finance or accounting
• 5+ years' experience in FP&A or corporate finance roles
• Experience in a high growth technology environment; SaaS, software, and recurring revenue streams experience a plus

Other Requirements:

• Hybrid work approach reporting to our Leawood, KS office.

Ascend Learning, LLC is proud to be an equal opportunity employer (M/F/Vets/Disabled). No agency or search firm submissions will be accepted. Applications for U.S. based positions with Ascend Learning, LLC must be legally authorized to work in the United States and verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

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