Senior Financial Analyst FP&A – Lifestyle Brands
About The Position
Catalyst Brands is seeking a Senior Financial Analyst to support financial planning, forecasting, reporting, and business analysis for its Lifestyle Brands division, including Aéropostale, Lucky Brand, and Nautica. This hybrid position is based in the New York, NY corporate office or, preferably, the Lyndhurst, NJ finance office. The role partners with Finance, Accounting, and Brand business leaders to evaluate performance across retail, e-commerce, and wholesale channels. The analyst examines business drivers, explains financial variances, and provides actionable insights to support strategic decisions. The position calls for an independent, self-starting professional who can own work end-to-end, combine FP&A skills with a corporate accounting foundation, validate data carefully, and translate operational activity into clear financial narratives.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, or a related quantitative field.
- At least 2 years of relevant hands-on experience in FP&A, corporate finance, or a combination of corporate accounting and financial analysis.
- High proficiency in advanced Excel, including lookups, SUMIFS, INDEX/MATCH, pivot tables, and driver-based modeling, with the ability to troubleshoot formulas.
- A structured, rigorous process for self-auditing, reconciling, and checking work for accuracy and completeness before presenting results to leadership.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to work productively with non-finance partners to resolve issues and improve forecast accuracy.
Nice To Haves
- Solid working knowledge of retail, including brick-and-mortar and e-commerce, and/or wholesale business models and their financial drivers.
- Prior finance or accounting experience in apparel, footwear, retail, or consumer packaged goods (CPG).
- Experience with enterprise systems and reporting tools such as Oracle, OneStream, or MicroStrategy.
Responsibilities
- Drive and support annual budgeting, monthly forecasting, and long-range planning across retail, e-commerce, wholesale, and corporate operations, actively building and shaping forecasts.
- Own assigned business areas, forecasts, and recurring deliverables with limited supervision.
- Build, maintain, and improve sophisticated, driver-based Excel financial models with documented, reasonable assumptions.
- Analyze sales, gross margin, SG&A, and profitability against budget, forecast, and prior periods; investigate variances, identify root causes, and recommend solutions.
- Analyze general ledger accounts and transaction-level details to validate monthly financial results and explain how accounting activity flows into financial statements.
- Partner with Accounting during month-end close to assess accrual needs and resolve discrepancies.
- Work with non-finance teams to understand operating plans and assess the effects of pricing, product volume, category mix, and product costs on sales and gross margin across brand channels.
- Prepare and present financial results, forecasts, and strategic recommendations, explaining complex financial concepts clearly to Finance and non-Finance partners.
Benefits
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Term life insurance
- Paid vacation
- Paid holidays, including eight holidays for eligible associates
- 401(k) with Company match
- Associate discount on Catalyst Brands merchandise
- Additional compensation for store hourly associates scheduled to work on a designated holiday
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
