There are great and exciting things happening at this design firm every day, and this financial analysis role will put you close to the action. The company needs a razor-sharp analyst to monitor, audit and otherwise keep an eye on expenditures and finance-related practices in its dealings with its clients. If you love getting down in the weeds, keeping track of the money, building bridges, and helping to create efficiency and understanding within an organization, you’ll find plenty in this gig to satisfy you.
Nitty Gritty
Simply put, you’ll be the conduit to all things finance for the departments that are client-facing. You’ll sit down on a regular basis with account owners and department heads to help them strategize around client P&Ls, review their client expenses, track their costs against the budgets they’ve set and against their client agreements, monitor client staffing and just generally make sure that their teams are acquainted with and following the company’s financial processes. You’ll ensure timely and accurate invoicing, and you’ll provide some support to the accounting department by conducting assorted analysis.
A lot of this work will be about ensuring proper reporting and detecting errors. But as a kind of constant background consideration, you should think of yourself as a source of understanding for the teams, a person who brings them knowledge about the many finance-related considerations that, let’s face it, aren’t generally their area of expertise. Thought of another way, you’ll be forging internal partnerships on finance-related matters where maybe before there were none.
You’re going to be working very closely with the CFO to develop this role, which means being given a lot of autonomy and a lot of leeway for reshaping processes when you can think of better ways of doing things.
Hired Gun Profile
Since graduating with your degree in accounting or finance, you’ve spent three to five years in an ad agency or consulting company, familiarizing yourself with the structures and relationships inherent to that kind of finance ecosystem (And obviously you’re right up to date on accounting principles and walk around with a nice well-rounded set of financial best practices for businesses).
The thing here, though, is that you also have the urge to create something new, to jump in and work with people and create new structures, to talk finance with people who aren’t in love with it and somehow get them jazzed about doing the right thing. We all know the unfair stereotypes about accountants; well, you constantly surprise people who harbor those stereotypes through your ability to talk about finance so laypeople can understand it, and through your great interpersonal skills and open, collaborative spirit.
Inside Skinny
To impress this employer, be ready to talk about more than your (admittedly awesome) accounting prowess; wow ‘em with your love of a challenge and your deep desire to contribute to positive organizational change.
Net Net
A highly respected firm, and a heart-of-the-action, build-it-yourself, humans-first role, with constant exposure to the CFO? Sounds pretty durn good to us.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, creed, age, sexual orientation, veteran status, marital status, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law.
