Senior Director - Finance - University of Washington - Seattle

SPH currently has an outstanding full time opportunity for a Senior Director of Finance. This position serves as the School’s lead financial resource and financial advisor to the Dean. The position reports to the School’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) and supervises three members of the Finance Team: a Research Business Manager, Budget/Fiscal Analyst Lead, and Finance Services Coordinator.

The Senior Director of Finance is responsible for the School’s financial planning, budgeting, and long-range forecasting. Working under the direction of the COO, and in coordination with the Department Administrators, Office of the Dean Leadership, and Finance Teams, he/she will utilize and improve the financial reporting, decision-support, and forecasting systems required by SPH to manage its resources under the University’s activity-based budgeting (ABB) system.
Working within a collaborative public university environment, the Senior Director develops and monitors the School budget, which includes state, local, and private grants and contracts, and gift funds. He/she provides advice and guidance to the Dean on federal, state, University, and School policies and procedures relating to fiscal matters. He/she also partners with, and serves as a resource to, the school’s undergraduate, graduate, and interdisciplinary program leadership.

The Senior Director of Finance must have exceptional skills in fiscal management, analysis, and reporting; staff supervision; written and oral communications; and creative problem-solving. As a member of the Office of the Dean Leadership Team, the Director of Finance is expected to exemplify:

A collegial, inclusive, collaborative working style, characterized by respectful listening and consensus-building, and the ability to earn and maintain trust among colleagues, reflecting the School’s tradition of transparency and shared governance.
A “can do” attitude and a track record of problem-solving, characterized by efficiency, initiative, creativity, and innovation.
A strong sense of fairness, discretion, and respect for all, to enable problem-solving.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Financial Management and Decision Support:
Fiscal Oversight: Manages the School’s revenues (state funds, grants and contracts, gift income and self-sustaining budgets); claims University resources and reallocates to appropriate budgets; masters and utilizes the various University financial systems (FIN, BGT, BARS, My Financial Desktop, Financial Cube, and Enterprise Data Warehouse); and coordinates closely with central units (Planning and Budgeting, units within Financial Management). Under the direction of the COO, provides leadership and guidance to Department Administrators; and trains School personnel on changing financial and compliance procedures.
Compliance: Working closely with the SPH Research Business Manager, maintains the School financial control systems to ensure compliance with internal and external audit requirements, payroll procedures, purchasing requirements, and other UW fiscal policies and procedures. Provides Dean-level review and approval for research grants and contracts to meet sponsor regulatory requirements, assess SPH cost implications, and verify School cost commitments. Interacts with central units and directly with sponsor agency personnel, as needed, to respond to grant and contract issues.
Salary Management: With oversight from the COO, provides administrative leadership to School merit, promotion and retention, and faculty and staff salary adjustments. Ensures school-wide salary records are current; including faculty and staff salaries; reviews appointment and promotion adjustments; and monitors tenure and additional compensation obligations.
Respond to Inquiries: Responds to financial inquiries from SPH Department Administrators, Office of the Dean Leadership, other UW units, public health associations, and SPH research partners. Provides information and instruction to departmental staff regarding the use of funds and interpretation of procedures. Serves as an expert resource to the Office of the Dean Leadership Team and SPH Departments in financial planning, as well as management and the administration of awarded grants and contracts.
Decision Support: In concert with SPH IT’s Senior Data Analyst, oversees the design of summary reports utilizing central University systems (e.g., Enterprise Data Warehouse and Financial Cube), summary dashboards, and other easily understood fiscal summaries. Regularly briefs the Dean, COO, Office of the Dean Leadership Team and Department Chairs. Develops effective methods for providing decision-support tools to monitor expenditure trends, identify costs, forecast revenues, and model scenarios.
Dean Support: Serves as a fiscal advisor to the Dean, assessing resources available to respond to emerging opportunities. Builds necessary SPH reserves and proactively identifies the fiscal implications of proposed courses of action. Organizes financial presentations for the Dean to report to the Chairs, Faculty Council, University leaders, Board of Health Sciences Deans, potential donors, and other public briefings. Ensures quick response to the Dean’s inquiries. Anticipates what is required to provide efficient and effective information in response to the Dean’s current activities.
SPH Executive Team: Actively participates in the SPH Office of the Dean Leadership Team and staff meetings. Under the direction of the COO, regularly updates staff on financial issues and assist in ensuring seamless coordination of effort within the Dean’s leadership team. Partners with the COO and Senior Associate Dean on the financial aspects of MOUs, service level agreements, and other SPH strategic alliances.

Leadership Tasks:
Activity-Based Budgeting: Maintain and improve financial reporting systems to optimize the school’s ability to manage revenues and expenses within the activity-based budgeting environment. This will require an understanding of the University’s financial systems, fund types, ABB implementation policies and tax structure, and factors influencing the cost of instruction and research; developing replicable reports to track revenues, monitor expenditures, anticipate taxes, and model allocation scenarios; and developing long-range forecasting tools to project annual, biennial and five-year revenue management and expenditure plans.
School Budget Allocation Model: Learn and improve upon the budget model for the annual strategic allocation of School revenues. This model reflects the objectives of the SPH Strategic Plan and enables SPH to respond to changing conditions in public health instruction, research, and service. The model employs criteria responsive to the diversity of instructional and research program costing across the schools five departments and SPH’s professional disciplines.
Annual Office of the Dean and School Budgets: Employ the budget model’s criteria and SPH fiscal data, and work closely with the ODLT and SPH Department Administrators to prepare the annual Office of the Dean and School budgets, as well as a fiscal request document for presentation to the UW Provost each spring. This document serves as both a reflective and prospective briefing, as well as outlining the SPH financial plan for the coming fiscal year (July-June).
Standardized School-wide Reporting System: Utilize and improve upon standardized methods for summarizing, reporting, and forecasting revenues and expenditures at the program, department and school levels.
Administrative Efficiencies: Support the Dean’s commitment to continuous process improvement in transactional processes and procedures to identify opportunities to streamline and/or reduce costly administrative redundancies. Process is to result in improved administrative services to the School’s faculty, staff, students and partner entities.
New Revenue Streams: Partner with School leadership to identify and project the potential of new revenue streams to enhance SPH’s ability to attract the best faculty and staff.
Major Capital Projects: Under the leadership of the COO, support the financial elements of capital construction planning including fiscal oversight, debt service management of capital construction and facilities remodeling projects, the creation of pro forma statements, and coordination with UW central units in creating financial documents and required reporting.

REQUIREMENTS:

MBA or CPA with formal training in finance, financial analysis, accounting or related field, and a minimum of 5 years of experience in serving as a senior-level financial lead in an organization, unit or group.

This position requires superior organizational, financial, analytical, writing and presentation skills, with a demonstrated record of successfully planning and implementing innovative financial plans and systems. Proficiency in the computing environment, Microsoft Office Suite applications, and a high level of proficiency in applying Microsoft Excel to financial management, forecasting, and accounting tasks is expected. Must work comfortably within a collaborative team environment. Must exercise sound judgment and maintain a high degree of integrity.

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