AVP-Finance and Accounting

Spinoso Real Estate Gro•Town of Onondaga, NY

About The Position

The AVP, Finance & Accounting leads the Finance and Property Accounting teams supporting a growing portfolio, including joint ventures, wholly owned assets, third-party investments, and REO and receivership engagements. The role oversees approximately 25+ employees through department managers and supervisors, setting strategic direction, developing talent, managing priorities, and ensuring financial deliverables meet the needs of clients and ownership groups. The AVP serves as a senior resource for complex, cross-functional matters impacting the organization and its financials, connecting the appropriate stakeholders, providing direction and recommendations, and ensuring effective solutions and clear communication with clients, partners, and company leadership.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
Significant experience in commercial real estate finance, asset management, or a related area.
Experience leading large teams through managers and supervisors.
Strong understanding of property-level financial statements, cash flows, lender requirements, and commercial real estate operations.
Experience reviewing ARGUS models, budgets, forecasts, leasing assumptions, return analyses, and ownership reporting.
Ability to understand an issue from multiple perspectives and connect accounting results to property activity and business decisions.
Strong communication skills and the ability to explain complex issues clearly to clients, employees, and senior leadership.
Good judgment and the ability to provide direction when an issue is unclear or crosses multiple departments.
A collaborative leadership style with the ability to be candid, make decisions, and hold people accountable without creating unnecessary friction.

Responsibilities

Set the overall direction, goals, priorities and expectations for the Finance and Accounting departments, translating executive expectations into actionable plans and ensuring alignment with company objectives. Tracking this information in ADP WorkforceNow. Lead through managers and supervisors, empowering them room to make decisions while providing coaching, , perspective, and final sign-off when needed.
Coach and develop department leaders and build organizational capability through effective delegation, succession planning, talent development and accountability.
Evaluate team structure, workloads, responsibilities and capacity to ensure resources are allocated effectively and priorities remain aligned with evolving business needs.
Establish consistent management practices across departments and ensure managers and supervisors conduct regular one-on-one meetings, complete timely performance reviews, provide ongoing coaching, maintain appropriate documentation, and address performance concerns when needed.
Build a culture of ownership, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement, while maintaining visibility into significant deadlines, workload, and team capacity and intervening when priorities are unclear or deliverables are at risk.
Serve as a key link between Finance, Accounting, Asset Management, Leasing, Operations, and Executive leadership.
Identify issues that may not be obvious when Finance or Accounting looks at something independently.
Look beyond the immediate accounting entry or financial result to understand the underlying property activity, cash movement, lease activity, or operational decision.
Bring the appropriate teams together, clarify ownership, resolve competing priorities, and esablish direction when departments are not fully aligned.
Translate asset-level activity into the appropriate accounting, financial and reporting treatment while keeping the needs of finance, clients, and ownership in mind.
Provide direction on complex or unusual matters, including joint venture equity, distributions, tenant receivables, escrow reconciliations, management fees, property transitions, year-end reconciliation accruals, and legacy balance-sheet items.
Review proposed accounting or audit adjustments to understand how they will affect financial reporting, cash-flow visibility, and future periods.
Develop solutions that are technically accurate but also practical for the teams responsible for carrying them out.
Provide direction and final review for ARGUS models, portfolio roll ups, leasing assumptions, cash adjustments, return analyses, and other high judgment financial work.
Review property cash flows, including sources and uses, bank and escrow activity, anticipated leasing costs, and recommended distributions.
Oversee JV distribution calculations and the allocation of cash between company and its investment partners.
Review higher risk or judgment financial work before it’s provided to the clients or used to support financial decisions.
Use knowledge of the portfolio and its history to identify unusual activity, emerging concerns and potential financial risks early.
Develop the team’s ability to to independently evaluate financial issues, apply sound judgment and make recommendations.
Provide guidance and final review on complex accounting matters that require a broader understanding of finance, overall operations, or client requirements, including receivables, recoveries, management fees, cash applications, escrows, equity activity, distributions, and property transitions.
Identify and resolve unusual balances or activity and guide the team through researching cash movement, tenant ledgers, historical entries, and supporting property information to determine underlying issues and appropriate accounting treatment
Ensure accounting records and processes support accurate financial reporting, cash-flow analysis, ownership reporting, and financial decision-making, while maintaining appropriate controls and consistency across the portfolio
Keep track of significant balance-sheet items, ensuring temporary, legacy, or transition-related balances are ultimately resolved.
Serves as a key point of contact for clients, partners, and company leadership on Finance and Accounting matters, including financial results, distributions, cash activity, reporting questions, unusual transactions, and closing support such as due diligence materials and prorations
Translate complex financial and accounting matters in a clear, business focused communication, providing recommendations, expected impacts and next steps while connecting financial information to underlying property activity and broader business context.
Coordinate across departments to ensure clients receive accurate, consistent and well supported information, reviewing significant deliverables from the client’s perspective and anticipating questions or concerns before information is communicated externally.
Build strong client relationships and develop the team’s client facing capabilities, coaching managers and team members to communicate financial matters effectively, confidently lead discussions, and appropriately navigate client questions, concerns and sensitive conversations.
Set the direction for new policies, procedures, controls, and departmental best practices, partnering with department managers and supervisors to develop and implement changes to improve consistency, accountability and financial control
Identify opportunities to improve processes that are overly manual, difficult to follow, dependent on individual knowledge or lack sufficient financial visibility, and lead improvements that increase efficiency, strengthen controls, and support the organization’s ability to scale.
Lead cross-functional process improvements involving complex financial activity including accounting, cash reporting, reconciliations, property transitions, and other complex activity.