Director, Financial Operations

Kemper•Dallas, TX

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Financial Operations leads all activities for Accounts Payable, Billing, Escheatment, Travel & Entertainment Expense Processing, Vendor Processing, Payroll, Check Services, and 1099 Processing. This position also develops, implements, and administers the vision, strategy, and goals of the department. This position proactively works with enterprise-wide stakeholders as a strategic partner. This position must use independent judgement and initiative in the planning, organization, assignment and reporting of work. This strategic leader understands business drivers for success and knows how to leverage leading practices to ensure Financial Operations is efficient in delivering on department objectives. This position can be located in one of our office - Dallas, TX; Birmingham, AL; St. Louis, MO

Requirements

At least 10 -12 years of experience in Accounting and/or Finance.
Candidates should be able to clearly articulate key business objectives, and primary metric measures for financial products and services.
Strong analytics, strategic thinking and consumer empathy a must.
Strong background in managing teams
Hands-on/team-player attitude toward tackling tactical as well as strategic work.
Proven teamwork skills to help deliver on-time product and project results.
Excellent written, oral, and presentation skills.
BA/BS in business, management or related field required.
Knowledge of disbursements best practices
Knowledge of industry issues and concerns
Knowledge of payroll best practices
Knowledge of accounts payable best practices
Knowledge of escheatment related regulatory requirements
Ability to transform theory into action
Ability to influence key stakeholders and operational owners through well-articulated strategies backed up with metric driven value statements
Build strong partnerships with a variety of stakeholders and other subject matter experts
Ability to lead a group through a detailed process while keeping the big picture in mind
Demonstrated experience in presenting information to senior management, external customers, etc.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Workday Finance is a plus.
MBA is a plus

Responsibilities

Refine, devise, and implement scalable processes and standards to ensure a positive customer experience, a controlled operating environment, and internal efficiency
Proactively discover inefficiencies in workstreams and process flows and find ways to improve, while not being scared of thinking outside of the box and to challenge the current status quo
Understand the team’s key metrics and KPIs, how to advance initiatives that ultimately support these objectives, while balancing these with the needs of the customer.
Provide input and advice as a subject matter expert across several topics including payment processing methods, NACHA Operating rules and Debit Card processing
Help operational teams with the analysis of incidents, and with the implementation of workarounds, formulate solutions to mitigate risks and minimize the impact for our stakeholders, internal and external.
Ensure that all processes and procedures are compliant with various accounting and regulatory requirements and are well documented / implemented across the organization
Identify and communicate the impacts of regulatory changes or market practices with the support of the segments and compliance department stakeholders
Administrator for the Corporate Credit Card program, Travel & Expense Policy, and Expense Reimbursement processes
Manage the integration of Disbursement Service-related activities for acquired companies, as needed
Manage external vendor relationships, as necessary.
Loading, Coding and Settlement: Non-trade vendor disbursements (checks and ACH); Agent Commissions (multiple workstreams); claim check reissues; abandoned property payments for claimed activity; abandoned property escheatment payment to States
Treasury Operations: Research and clear positive pay exceptions and reconciliations; manual uploads of positive pays; process bank returns
Claims Operations: Process stop payments, voids and reissues requests made through Kemper Claim Center
Agent Activity: Process commission payments, chargebacks, and exceptions