Company Description

By working at Harvard University, you join a vibrant community that advances Harvard's world-changing mission in meaningful ways, inspires innovation and collaboration, and builds skills and expertise. We are dedicated to creating a diverse and welcoming environment where everyone can thrive.

Why join the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences?

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is the historic heart of Harvard University. It is the home of Harvard’s undergraduate program (Harvard College, founded in 1636) as well as all of Harvard’s Ph.D. programs (the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1872), Harvard Athletics and the Division of Continuing Education. The 40 academic departments and 30+ centers of the FAS support a community unparalleled in its academic excellence across the broadest range of liberal arts and sciences disciplines. Together, the FAS seeks to foster an environment of ambition, curiosity and shared commitment to knowledge and truth that elicits excellence from all members of our community and prepares the next generation of leaders through a transformative educational experience.

Job Description

The FAS Office of Finance is a dynamic work environment that conducts strategic and financial analysis, as well as other projects, to inform resource allocation and decision making for Academic Leadership and other Senior Management. The Senior Business Systems and Data Analyst will develop financial tools and enhanced processes that guide the preparation of annual budgets, mid-year forecasts, multi-year financial plans, and quarterly management reporting of budget to actual financial information and personnel investments. Financial information produced by this position is used to facilitate strategic financial decision making for departments, affiliated tubs, senior management in FAS, including the FAS Dean and University partners. This position provides data that is essential for successful financial planning activities, in the form of multi-year planning, annual budgeting and forecasting, and year-end reporting.

Reporting to the Chief Financial Officer, FAS Office of Finance. The Senior Business Systems and Data Analyst will play a vital role in managing data and information systems for a high-volume, data-driven office.

Job Summary:

Research, design, document, implement, configure, and validate solutions to business needs. Solve highly complex technical problems. May manage multiple projects simultaneously.

Job-Specific Responsibilities:

Analytical Design and Financial Modeling

• Design and build analytical tools that enhance multi-year financial planning, planning initiatives, annual budget and forecast, and budget-to-actual monitoring.
• Recommend, design, and create new models and methods that will improve data accuracy, provide consistent reporting and deliver information more efficiently.
• Evaluate tools to support or optimize business processes and determine solutions that can be scaled to the size of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences ($1.6B expense budget).
• Provide accurate and timely analytical support for budget and planning team.

Data Management and Report Development

• Develop and produce materials to facilitate forecast, budget, and multi-year financial planning for the Faculty of Arts and Science.
• Build new tools for financial monitoring of budget-to-actuals at the school and department/unit level.
• Gather business requirements for data and reporting needs. Translate business requirements into reports and analyses. Develop various financial reporting packages that support senior leadership in decision making.
• Develop technical solutions for complex business processes and for information needs. Technical solutions may include (a) writing ad hoc SQL queries and Oracle PL/SQL code to produce complex reports in an Oracle database environment and (b) developing reports and dashboards in Oracle Analytics Server.
• Ensure data integrity and accuracy by reconciling data discrepancies between different data sources.

Working Conditions:

Work is performed in an office setting

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• Minimum of five years’ post-secondary education or relevant work experience

Additional Qualifications and Skills:

• Bachelor's degree preferred.
• MBA, Master’s in Information Systems, Master’s of Information Science, or other relevant professional/graduate degree desirable.
• Preferred experience at a higher education institution or in a high-quality professional services environment
• Experience with programming or scripting in a language such as Oracle PL/SQL.
• Experience with business intelligence reporting software such as Oracle Analytics Server.
• Experience using budget systems such as Anaplan or Oracle a plus.
• Advanced knowledge of budget management, financial analysis, and financial modeling; working knowledge of accounting principles
• Ability to organize and summarize complex and large data sets to answer a business question and to translate business requirements into reports and analyses.
• Attention to detail and demonstrated experience with quality assurance and data integrity are required.
• Strong problem solving, organizational, analytical, data analysis, and facilitation skills.
• Proven ability to work in a complex environment and take an assignment from project design to final presentation with a minimum of supervision is necessary.
• Demonstrated desktop application skills including Excel (including VBA/Macros), Word, MS Project, Access, PowerPoint, and Visio.

Certificates and Licenses:

• Completion of Harvard IT Academy specified foundational courses (or external equivalent) preferred