Lead Financial Planning Analyst (Marketing)

The Vanguard Group • Malvern, PA

6d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead Financial Planning Analyst will serve as a strategic Finance partner within Marketing, combining FP&A fundamentals with business acumen, analytical curiosity, and an investment mindset. The role partners with senior leaders to translate financial and business performance into insights, evaluate investment opportunities and tradeoffs, and connect Marketing resources to measurable business outcomes. The successful candidate looks beyond reporting numbers to understand their drivers and implications and help improve subsequent decisions.

The role owns core FP&A activities for key Marketing functions and partners with Marketing and Finance stakeholders to improve understanding of how marketing investments translate into business outcomes. It also drives collaboration, process improvement, and decision support across Finance and Marketing.

Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position. Vanguard describes its mission as supporting clients’ long-term financial wellbeing and leading through products and services that transform clients’ lives. The company uses a hybrid working model for the majority of crew members, combining flexibility with in-person learning, collaboration, and connection.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience in FP&A, financial analysis, or a related Finance role.
• Strong capabilities in planning, forecasting, financial modeling, and performance analysis.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to synthesize complex financial and business information, identify key drivers, and translate analysis into clear recommendations.
• Exceptional written and executive communication skills, including the ability to prepare clear, compelling strategic memos, executive presentations, business cases, and other decision-support materials for senior audiences.
• Strong business partnership and influencing skills, including the ability to build credibility with senior leaders and cross-functional partners, constructively challenge thinking, and help move decisions and priorities forward.
• Strategic and commercial mindset, with curiosity about how the business works and the ability to connect financial decisions and investments to broader business outcomes.
• High degree of ownership and initiative, with the ability to operate independently, anticipate needs, manage competing priorities, and drive work forward in an evolving environment.
• Strong attention to detail while maintaining a broader perspective and focusing effort on the questions and decisions that matter most.

Responsibilities

• Own annual planning, forecasting, monthly reporting, variance analysis, risk and opportunity identification, and ongoing expense and headcount management for key Marketing functions; surface insights and issues requiring leadership attention.
• Serve as a trusted Finance partner to senior Marketing leaders, developing an understanding of business strategies, priorities, investments, and performance drivers and bringing financial perspective to decision-making.
• Evaluate Marketing investments and business opportunities through business cases, scenario analyses, and financial models that clarify costs, benefits, tradeoffs, risks, and expected outcomes.
• Develop expertise across marketing investment, media, measurement, and analytics, and partner with Marketing and Finance stakeholders to improve the connection between spend, performance, and value creation.
• Turn financial and business data into actionable insights by explaining drivers and implications, challenging assumptions constructively, and recommending next steps.
• Collaborate across Finance and Marketing to solve problems, align stakeholders, and move important work forward with ownership, sound judgment, and follow-through.
• Improve Finance processes by simplifying and standardizing work, leveraging automation and emerging tools, and eliminating lower-value activities to create capacity for analysis, decision support, and strategic partnership.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed