Advanced Business Planning Specialist

Job Description

Business Planning orchestrates initiatives and guides the company toward achieving profit objectives. As the specialist for an NAT affiliate, your role will be pivotal in driving financial planning and analysis activities to support strategic decision-making and operational excellence. You will collaborate with all departments across the organization to collect data on improvement activities and aid in assessing their financial implications.

Responsibilities

1. Budgeting and Forecasting - serve as key resource in coordination of annual budgeting/monthly forecasting cycle; liaison to functional departments; develop department level financial forecasts for operating expenses and capital expenditures utilizing inputs from department managers and project-focused spending plans.
2. Financial Planning - develop and maintain financial models underlying the organization's budgeting and forecasting infrastructure.
3. Data Analysis - identify key variances and their causes in financial results versus the approved financial plan. Identify trends, anomalies, and opportunities for improvement by utilizing financial systems and tools to gather, analyze, and interpret financial data.
4. Financial Reporting - prepare reports and presentations to communicate financial results, forecasts, and insights to key stakeholders.
5. Business Partnering - effective collaboration with accounting team on completion of monthly and quarterly financial closes, and incorporation of actual results into a live forecast; partnering with stakeholders as necessary to assist in quantifying financial impact of business decisions.
6. Process Improvement - continuous improvement of processes, systems, and models to enhance efficiency and accuracy.
7. Regulatory Compliance - ensuring compliance with financial standards and regulations in all financial planning and analysis activities.
8. Ad-Hoc Analysis and Projects - perform and execute an array of additional ad-hoc financial and operational analyses as requested.
9. Product Costing - develop and maintain standard costs for material cost, labor, and overhead.

Qualifications

1. Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Accounting, Economics, or related discipline.
2. Ability to read and interpret financial statements.
3. Excellent financial modeling skills.
4. Excel Proficiency (e.g. VLOOKUP, pivot tables).
5. Ability to work independently, detail-oriented, and execution focused.
6. Proven decision-making, problem solving, and multi-tasking skills.
7. Strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Preferred

1. Experience with ERP systems (e.g. JDE, SAP, Oracle, etc.).
2. VBA, SQL, or other programming skills desirable, but not required.
3. Experience in the automotive industry.