Senior Associate, Financial Planning & Analysis

Ares Operations•New York, NY

16h

About The Position

Ares is seeking an experienced Associate to join its Global Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) team in New York as the dedicated FP&A partner for evergreen funds within the Infrastructure Equity strategy. The role owns fund-level financial models and provides integrated planning, forecasting, performance analysis, and decision support in partnership with the Infrastructure Equity team and finance stakeholders. It requires advanced financial modeling and accounting knowledge, as well as the ability to turn complex fund and portfolio data into clear insights and recommendations. The position supports planning and forecasting, maintains and governs fund models, develops strategic analyses and reporting, and improves the efficiency and scalability of FP&A processes. It works closely with investment, tax, accounting, divisional CFO, and technology teams, and prepares analyses and materials for senior leadership, investment committees, investors, lenders, boards, and other internal stakeholders.

Requirements

At least three years of experience in investment banking, private equity, corporate finance, FP&A, accounting, valuation, or another highly analytical finance role.
Familiarity with midstream, power generation, digital infrastructure, transportation, or other infrastructure subsectors.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to distill complex research, analysis, and model outputs into clear findings and presentation materials.
Exceptional attention to detail, sound judgment, and ability to manage multiple workstreams and deadlines.
Expert analytical, data-management, and financial-modeling skills using Excel and advanced technology solutions.
Familiarity with financial planning, consolidation, reporting, and analytics applications, including Oracle, Hyperion, OneStream, Power BI, Anaplan, Alteryx, and Workiva.
Genuine interest in Infrastructure Equity fund fundamentals and technology-driven workflow improvements.
Collaborative, team-oriented approach, strong interpersonal skills, and a sense of ownership.
Self-motivated and proactive, with a can-do attitude and ability to resolve issues independently in a fast-paced environment.

Nice To Haves

Undergraduate and/or advanced degree in finance, accounting, economics, engineering, or mathematics.
Experience building, maintaining, or working with relationship, hierarchical, SQL, or Access databases.

Responsibilities

Build effective relationships across the Infrastructure Equity investment team, fund and corporate accounting, tax, the divisional CFO organization, and technology teams; support the FP&A VP.
Support annual budgets, periodic forecasts, and long-range planning for evergreen funds in the Infrastructure Equity strategy.
Integrate investment-level assumptions into fund-level forecasts, including investment performance, cash flows, liquidity, leverage, NAV, earnings, distributions, and investor returns.
Analyze actual and forecasted performance, identify business drivers and risks, and explain variances against forecasts, budgets, underwriting cases, and realized results.
Translate fund performance and model outputs into management fee, incentive fee, and other earnings forecasts for divisional and consolidated Ares planning and reporting.
Prepare concise analyses and materials for senior leadership, investment committees, and internal stakeholders.
Own and maintain fund-level financial models for the evergreen funds within the Infrastructure Equity strategy.
Incorporate new investments, fund developments, updated performance expectations, funding assumptions, and actual results in partnership with stakeholders.
Manage recurring fund-model inputs across deal teams, including submission timelines, input validation, review, and escalation of material changes or unresolved issues.
Maintain model integrity through version control, documentation, reconciliation, and review procedures.
Reconcile model outputs with investment reporting, accounting records, periodic valuations, and fund financial statements in partnership with fund and corporate accounting.
Develop insights and recommendations from model outputs to support capital allocation, portfolio construction, financing, liquidity management, and other fund-management decisions.
Partner with investment and tax teams to maintain forecasts of taxable income, earnings and profits, and other fund-level tax attributes.
Prepare and review analyses for investor, lender, board, and internal committee reporting packages.
Support ad hoc financial analysis and strategic initiatives for the Infrastructure Equity team and Global Corporate FP&A leadership.
Improve the efficiency, accuracy, and scalability of fund-level planning, forecasting, reporting, and analytical processes.
Support development and enhancement of dashboards, management reporting, and analytical tools.
Identify opportunities to automate recurring workflows and use new technology and data solutions.
Promote consistent FP&A practices, controls, documentation, and reporting standards.