Finance Manager

Gates Foundation•Seattle, WA

14d•Remote

About The Position

The Finance Manager role is responsible for providing business, financial analysis and modeling support to the US Program Division, with an ideal candidate having a proven track record of working in a cross-cutting financial role providing support to multiple stakeholders or programs, experience within the Education Technology and/or Education sectors. This role will directly support our K-12 Teaching and Learning and Postsecondary Learning & Navigation program teams execute on their approved strategies. This candidate will partners with other FP&A team members to support the division on grantee financial assessment and business case analysis, complex grant structuring, including financial due diligence, as well as building and managing key relationships. Other responsibilities include budgeting and financial planning, resource allocation, and supporting other foundation-wide priorities.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree with 7 years of financial planning experience, or equivalent years of relevant experience.
Strong analytical acumen, especially financial modeling, and grant structuring.
Knowledge of risk management and organizational due diligence.
Robust analytical, quantitative, and modeling skills for a broad variety of transaction types.
Strong written and verbal communication skills that are appropriately right sized to relevant audiences.
Communicates sophisticated financial concepts to partners with a diverse set of backgrounds, including leadership, program staff, grantees, and other foundation operational resources.
Strong synthesizing skills and ability to absorb and quickly distill significant amounts of information.
Ability to read and analyze financial statements.
Strong project management skills and ability to work on multiple projects – or support multiple teams – simultaneously.
Strong relationship management skills with demonstrated success working with individuals at all levels of an organization.
Skilled in group problem-solving and teamwork to resolve problems involving internal and external partners.
Influences without formal authority and works with efficiency, diplomacy, and flexibility as part of a team with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds.
Highest level of integrity and leadership by example, helping to set the tone for the organization and demonstrate an affinity for creating and enabling an inclusive culture.
Must have unrestricted work authorization in the country where this position is located.
The Foundation does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. This includes direct company sponsorship and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (eg: H-1B, O-1, L-1, E, OPT, STEM-OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc.).

Nice To Haves

Experience in the technology, and educational technology and/or technology product development sector preferred.
International finance experience/exposure preferred.
Advanced Excel skills and data visualization experience preferred.
Demonstrates intellectual curiosity.

Responsibilities

Provide support, financial analysis, and business advice to program teams and drive business case analyses in partnership with FP&A colleagues, program team members, and provide proactive feedback to program team members and potential partners related to factors such as grant structure, organizational effectiveness of the partners, business and pricing strategy and more.
Lead ad hoc complex analyses and provide program leadership with strategic and financial information to support budget management, forecasting and effective financial resource allocation and decision-making through the foundation’s financial and strategic processes.
Support annual budgeting and financial planning processes, including partnering with other FP&A team members, Program Officers and the Strategy, Planning and Management teams to translate business strategy into mid and long-range forecasts to produce detailed, dynamic 4-year budgets, as well as risk assessments and scenario modeling.
Proactively support organizational assessments/due diligence of key grantees/partners, and partner with Program Officers to develop appropriate mitigating strategies to manage financial and organizational risks of partners and grants.
Cultivate and manage key functional relationships and partnerships with internal stakeholders.
Lead forecast and portfolio allocation management for assigned PSTs, including the monitoring of actuals and forecasts to budget, with risk assessment and produce variance analysis.
Create dynamic financial planning tools that support decision-making and communication with program leadership.
Perform financial and risk analysis to support grant making and management.
Partner with programmatic teams to manage grant and contract spending.
Identify operational and financial risks of executing against annual budgets and broader planning horizons.
Assess business plans and perform financial sustainability analysis of organizations and specific projects.
Advise program teams on risk mitigation actions including grants to strengthen the organizational capacity of partners.
Assess the financial and organizational health of grantee organizations through financial statements review and discussions with counter-level partners and other finance staff.
Drive data analyses to generate new insights on the grant portfolio, leading to improved allocation of resources.
Structure grants to optimize cash disbursements in consideration of operational risks.
Leverage tools and reports to plan and monitor workflow, forecast and payout performance.
Participate in cross-foundation efforts to develop tools and standard methodologies in support of effective grant-making, pipeline management and operational excellence.
Participate in complex transactions and special projects for teams with significant financial analysis component.
Other duties as assigned.