Description
The Director of Finance for Real Estate and Facilities owns the financial picture for everything the University owns, leases, builds, and maintains.
The portfolio spans commercial property, investment property, faculty and staff housing, and the University’s physical plant — academic, administrative, and residential buildings, together with the contracted and internal operations that maintain them and the projects that improve them.
This is a newly established position. The Director will have the opportunity to shape how the University’s real estate and physical plant finance functions operate, working closely with the Deputy Chief Financial Officer and operational leadership.
Examples of Duties
Real Estate — Financial Reporting and Analysis
The Director of Finance for Real Estate and Facilities owns the financial picture for everything the University owns, leases, builds, and maintains.
The portfolio spans commercial property, investment property, faculty and staff housing, and the University’s physical plant — academic, administrative, and residential buildings, together with the contracted and internal operations that maintain them and the projects that improve them.
This is a newly established position. The Director will have the opportunity to shape how the University’s real estate and physical plant finance functions operate, working closely with the Deputy Chief Financial Officer and operational leadership.
Examples of Duties
Real Estate — Financial Reporting and Analysis
- Prepare and review financial statements for the University’s real estate holdings, including wholly owned properties, joint ventures, and third-party managed assets.
- Support the Director of Physical Plant in budget development, monitoring, and variance analysis for operations, maintenance, utilities, and capital renewal. Budget ownership rests with the Director of Physical Plant.
- Maintain purchase order, encumbrance, and vendor spend monitoring; review requisitions against approved budget authority in accordance with University procurement policy; and raise unresolved control matters in writing.
- Provide financial administration for contracted services — including grounds, maintenance, and HVAC and energy — reviewing invoices against contracted rates and scope and monitoring performance against agreement terms.
- Provide financial support to internal operations, including vehicle services, warehouse, and trucking, including cost baselines and inventory valuation.
- Maintain the deferred maintenance register and support capital planning with cost and condition data.
- Develop submission standards for facilities administrative staff and provide training and support.
- Maintain a register of operational and services agreements — scope, value, rates, term, and renewal and notice dates — and monitor spend against contract terms and procurement thresholds. Active construction contracts are managed by the Project Manager.
- Support competitive processes and contract renewals with cost history and performance analysis.
- Track commitments and budget-to-actual position on capital projects using cost data provided by the Project Manager, verify it against the accounting record, and support close-out and capitalization with the Comptroller’s Office.
- Issue a monthly financial reporting package for real estate and the physical plant, and participate in a standing monthly review with the Deputy Chief Financial Officer.
- Prepare financial reporting and analysis for senior leadership and governance purposes.
- Prepare audit workpapers and respond to auditor requests within scope; support accreditation and regulatory reporting.
- Maintain documented procedures for recurring financial processes within this position’s scope.
- Coordinate with risk management on insurance coverage for the portfolio, and identify potential unrelated business income tax matters for review.
- Use the University’s financial systems, business intelligence tools, and available automation and artificial intelligence tools to streamline reconciliation, reporting, contract and invoice review, and exception identification.
- Build and maintain dashboards and standing reports, and translate results into insight for leadership.
- Create tools, templates, and reporting views for other users in these functions, provide training, and participate in the University’s broader data and automation efforts.
- Verify all system-generated output before it is used or reported, cite source data, and apply University data governance requirements.
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, business, or a related field
- Six or more years of progressively responsible financial or accounting experience
- Strong analytical and quantitative skills — demonstrated ability to work with financial data, build analysis, and explain results clearly
- Budget experience — building budgets, monitoring results, and explaining variances to leadership
- Demonstrated ability to apply financial controls in the face of operational pressure
- Advanced proficiency with Excel and reporting or analytical tools
- CPA or CMA, or active candidacy
- Working knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles applicable to not-for-profit entities
- Experience in higher education, real estate, facilities, or multi-entity organizations
- Real estate financial analysis experience — pro forma modeling, net operating income analysis, covenant compliance
- Experience working with contracts, leases, or vendor agreements
- Experience with enterprise financial systems and business intelligence platforms
- Experience with applying automation or artificial intelligence tools to financial work
- Strong analytical ability and financial judgment matter more than a specific background.
- Candidates from corporations, public sectors, or nonprofit finance are encouraged to apply; real estate and higher education specifics can be learned.
Competencies
- Building and operating : Comfort helping design and establish processes, and the discipline to document them as they are built.
- One financial skill set, two asset types : The position applies the same core disciplines — budget monitoring, contract review, reporting, and analysis — to real estate and to the physical plant. No construction background is required; technical evaluation of construction work sits with the Project Manager.
- Constructive independence : The position reviews the work of property managers, partners, and service contractors, and must hold standards while preserving working relationships.
- Sound judgment : Some areas within scope are newly established. Defensible decisions, clearly documented, are expected.
- Communication across audiences : The same result must be explainable to a facilities manager, an external auditor, and senior leadership.
This position has no direct reports and exercises functional authority — it sets the standard a financial submission must meet and may hold a transaction that does not meet it, without directing another department’s staff.
- Deputy Chief Financial Officer : Reports to. Standing monthly review.
- Senior Manager, Real Estate Operations : Partner. Holds tenant, lease, and property manager relationships and operating data; this position holds the financial reporting and analysis.
- Director, Physical Plant : Partner. Owns the physical plant budget; this position supports it with analysis, monitoring, and reporting.
- Project Manager : Partner. Project management captures cost data; this position verifies and reports it.
- Comptroller’s Office : Coordination on close, consolidation, capitalization, and audit.
- Property managers, partners, lenders : External counterparties for financial reporting and compliance.
- Contracted services providers : Financial counterparty on billing, scope, and performance.