Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Manager - Compensation and Workforce Planning

Western Alliance Bank•Phoenix, AZ

About The Position

The Senior FP&A Manager, Compensation and Workforce Planning serves as the finance lead for the bank’s sales incentive program, overseeing tracking, reporting, budgeting, and forecasting of incentive compensation, as well as consolidated workforce planning across the organization. The role ensures incentive-related financial results and workforce expense assumptions are accurate, transparent, well-controlled, and aligned with business performance. It partners with business leaders, Human Resources, Accounting, Business Data Governance, and Finance leadership to connect incentive plan outcomes and workforce trends to budgets, forecasts, business-line performance, and management reporting. The manager leads recurring incentive compensation reporting and owns annual budgeting and monthly forecasting for incentive expense. The role oversees enterprise FTE tracking and forecasting, coordinates workforce planning across business lines and support functions, develops and oversees financial models, validates incentive-related data, and prepares management analysis and recommendations. It also establishes processes and controls, improves reporting automation and auditability, and provides decision support for incentive plan changes, business reviews, and strategic initiatives.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Analytics, or a related field.
7+ years of progressive experience in FP&A, financial analysis, incentive compensation, sales finance, corporate finance, or management reporting.
Demonstrated experience owning budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, accruals, and management reporting processes.
Strong financial modeling skills, including the ability to connect business drivers, plan assumptions, production trends, and expense outcomes.
Strong analytical and data validation skills, with attention to accuracy, consistency, controls, documentation, and governance.
Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional processes and partner effectively across Finance, Human Resources, Compensation, Accounting, data governance, and business-line leadership.
Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
Excellent communication and presentation skills, including the ability to explain complex financial and incentive compensation concepts clearly to finance and non-finance stakeholders, including senior management.

Nice To Haves

MBA, CPA, or CFA.
Experience supporting incentive compensation, sales performance reporting, workforce expense planning, or revenue-based compensation programs.
Experience with planning, reporting, or incentive systems such as Oracle EPBCS, Adaptive Insights, Anaplan, Power BI, Workday, Varicent, or similar platforms.
Experience in banking or financial services.

Responsibilities

Lead recurring FP&A reporting for incentive compensation, including actual results, budget comparisons, forecast updates, accrual trends, variance explanations, and management commentary.
Own annual budget and monthly forecast processes for incentive compensation expense, documenting and supporting assumptions and aligning them with business performance expectations.
Oversee enterprise FTE tracking and forecasting, providing executive leadership with insights on hiring trends, turnover, and workforce capacity, and ensuring continuity and consistency in FTE planning.
Coordinate consolidated workforce planning across business lines and support functions, including headcount, salary and benefits assumptions, hiring plans, vacancies, productivity trends, and related expense impacts.
Serve as the primary Finance partner to business-line leaders on sales performance, production trends, plan attainment, and drivers of incentive compensation expense.
Oversee models connecting incentive plan metrics, sales activity, eligible revenue or production, payout assumptions, accruals, and forecasted expense.
Prepare and present management reporting and analysis on incentive compensation performance, workforce trends, forecast risks and opportunities, and potential business-line and enterprise financial impacts.
Lead data validation for incentive-eligible financial metrics, ensuring data ingested into the HR system is accurate, including fee revenue, production activity, business-line results, and other financial inputs used in incentive calculations.
Establish repeatable processes, controls, documentation, and governance routines for incentive compensation and workforce planning, reporting, accruals, and forecast management.
Partner with the Incentives team to improve reporting automation, reduce manual tracking, strengthen auditability, and increase transparency into incentive compensation outcomes.
Provide financial leadership and decision support for incentive plan changes, business performance reviews, management questions, and strategic initiatives.