Torchora
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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for a Strategic Finance Partner

💰 $110,000 - $165,000

FinanceFP&AAccountingBusiness PartneringCorporate Finance

🎯 Role Definition

Are you a strategic thinker with a passion for numbers and a knack for building strong business relationships? We're looking for a dynamic and commercially-minded Finance Partner to join our growing team. In this pivotal role, you will move beyond traditional accounting to become a true strategic advisor. You will own the financial planning, forecasting, and analysis for your designated business units, translating complex financial data into a compelling narrative that guides strategy and drives performance. Your ability to challenge assumptions, influence senior leaders, and champion financial accountability will be critical to your success and the company's ambitious growth trajectory.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Financial Analyst (FP&A)
  • Management Accountant / Cost Accountant
  • Corporate Finance Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Finance Partner / Lead Finance Partner
  • Finance Manager / FP&A Manager
  • Director of FP&A

Lateral Moves:

  • Corporate Strategy Manager
  • Business Operations Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Act as the primary financial liaison and trusted advisor to senior leaders (VPs, Directors) of assigned business units, embedding finance into their core decision-making processes.
  • Lead the end-to-end annual budgeting and rolling quarterly forecasting processes, ensuring alignment with corporate financial targets and long-term strategic initiatives.
  • Develop sophisticated and scalable financial models to support strategic initiatives, new business opportunities, M&A activity, and long-range planning (LRP).
  • Provide insightful and proactive variance analysis of financial results against budget, forecast, and prior periods, identifying key drivers, underlying trends, and performance narrative.
  • Prepare and present comprehensive monthly and quarterly business review (MBR/QBR) packages to executive leadership, translating complex data into actionable insights and strategic recommendations.
  • Collaborate with business leaders to develop, track, and interpret key performance indicators (KPIs) and operational metrics that drive business performance and accountability.
  • Proactively identify, quantify, and communicate financial risks and opportunities to the business, recommending clear mitigation strategies and improvement plans.
  • Own the creation and validation of business cases for new investments, projects, or products, including robust ROI, NPV, and payback analysis to ensure sound capital allocation.
  • Drive the financial narrative for your business unit, helping stakeholders at all levels understand the "why" behind the numbers and the financial impact of their actions.
  • Challenge business assumptions in a constructive manner, fostering a culture of data-driven decision-making and financial rigor.
  • Manage the full lifecycle of headcount and workforce cost planning, partnering closely with HR and business leaders on organizational design and resource allocation.
  • Analyze and advise on the financial implications of commercial decisions, including customer/supplier contract negotiations, new pricing strategies, and marketing campaign effectiveness.
  • Monitor, control, and report on operating expenses (OpEx) and capital expenditures (CapEx), ensuring adherence to approved plans and identifying opportunities for efficiency.
  • Enhance financial literacy across the business by training and coaching non-finance stakeholders on key financial concepts and their impact on the P&L.
  • Champion continuous improvement by identifying and leading initiatives to automate and streamline finance processes, reporting, and modeling to increase efficiency and impact.

Secondary Functions

  • Support the accounting team during the month-end close process by providing accrual analysis and variance explanations to ensure accurate financial reporting.
  • Conduct deep-dive analyses on specific cost drivers, revenue streams, customer profitability, or product margins to uncover hidden opportunities.
  • Participate in and provide the financial perspective for cross-functional projects, such as system implementations or new market entries.
  • Consolidate financial results and commentary from multiple business partners to support executive-level and board-level reporting requirements.
  • Assist in the preparation of external reporting materials and investor relations communications as needed.
  • Perform ad-hoc financial analysis and provide rapid decision support to business partners for time-sensitive queries and emergent strategic questions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Advanced Financial Modeling: Proven ability to build complex, dynamic, and scalable financial models from scratch for budgeting, forecasting, and business case analysis.
  • Expert-Level Microsoft Excel: Mastery of pivot tables, complex formulas (index/match, sumifs), Power Query, and data manipulation. VBA/macros are a plus.
  • FP&A Acumen: Deep understanding of financial planning, budgeting, forecasting methodologies, and variance analysis.
  • ERP & Financial Systems: Hands-on experience with large-scale ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle, NetSuite) and planning/reporting tools (e.g., Anaplan, Hyperion, Adaptive Insights).
  • Business Intelligence Tools: Proficiency in using BI and data visualization tools like Tableau or Power BI to create insightful dashboards and reports.
  • SQL / Data Querying: Ability to write basic to intermediate SQL queries to extract and manipulate data for analysis is highly desirable.
  • Accounting Principles: Solid understanding of core accounting principles (GAAP/IFRS) to ensure alignment between planning and actuals.

Soft Skills

  • Business Acumen: Strong commercial awareness and the ability to quickly understand the key operational levers and market dynamics of the business.
  • Influence & Stakeholder Management: Proven ability to build trust and influence senior leaders and cross-functional partners without direct authority.
  • Communication & Storytelling with Data: Exceptional ability to communicate complex financial information clearly and concisely to non-financial audiences, both verbally and in writing.
  • Strategic & Critical Thinking: A proactive, hypothesis-driven approach to analysis, moving beyond reporting "what" happened to explaining "why" it happened and "what's next."
  • Problem-Solving & Ambiguity: Thrives in a fast-paced environment and is comfortable navigating ambiguity, with a strong bias for action and finding solutions.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in a relevant field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master of Business Administration (MBA)
  • Professional certification such as CPA (Certified Public Accountant), CMA (Certified Management Accountant), or CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Finance
  • Accounting
  • Economics
  • Business Administration

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5-8+ years of progressive experience in finance roles, with a significant portion in Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A).

Preferred:

  • At least 2-3 years of direct experience in a Finance Business Partner or a similar strategic finance role supporting commercial, operational, or technology teams.
  • Experience within a similar industry (e.g., Technology/SaaS, CPG/Retail, Manufacturing) is a strong plus.
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