Job Summary
The Finance Director provides strategic leadership and oversight for financial planning, budgeting, reporting, analytics, and fiscal operations across the School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH). This key leadership position directs initiatives that support the effective deployment of financial, administrative, and staffing resources in alignment with organizational priorities and strategic goals.
The Finance Director, acting as the Deputy CFO, fosters strong collaboration among SMPH departments and serves as a key partner to UW Medical Foundation and UW Health finance teams, supporting integrated financial reporting, budgeting, and implementation of shared financial initiatives. The position provides financial consultation and decision support to executive leadership through data-driven analysis, performance monitoring, and continuous improvement of financial systems and processes.
This role leads financial system development and maintenance across SMPH, in collaboration with UW Madison and UW System. Given the size and complexity of SMPH, this leadership role is highly visible and active in leading and collaborating to improve Workday, Madison Adaptive, and other financial processing and reporting systems.
Reporting to the CFO, the Finance Director leads the SMPH fiscal organization through three Associate Directors overseeing shared financial services, budgeting and analytics, and clinical services and fiscal policy. The Finance Director establishes and administers policies and procedures governing financial operations, reporting, compliance, and resource management while ensuring operational excellence and sound financial stewardship. This position is a highly visible role and leads or serves are several school and campus committees.
As a strategic advisor and representative of the school, the Finance Director collaborates regularly with the Dean and senior leadership; participates in school-wide and campus-wide committees; and builds partnerships across academic, clinical, and administrative organizations to advance institutional objectives.
Additional Position Details
- This position may require some work to be performed in-person, onsite, at a designated campus work location. Some work may be performed remotely, at an offsite, non-campus work location.
Key Job Responsibilities
- Determines personnel needs and the personnel resource allocation plan
- Oversees, reviews, develops, recommends, and implements policies and procedures for internal and external financial reporting, budgeting and financial operations
- Participates in the development, maintenance, and monitoring of automated financial information systems and budgets, and disseminates updates and results to leadership when appropriate
- Serves as a divisional representative and subject matter expert to institutional leadership and internal and external stakeholders providing financial direction and information, fostering collaborative relationships across multiple functional areas, and representing the interests of the division
- Exercises supervisory authority, including hiring, transferring, suspending, promoting, managing conduct and performance, discharging, assigning, rewarding, disciplining, and/or approving hours worked of at least 2.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees
- Responsible for policies and reporting relating to transactions with UW Health. Works with both campus and UW Health staff to accomplish
- Directs strategic planning initiatives and establishes objectives for multiple finance functional areas to ensure appropriate use of financial, administrative, and staffing resources and alignment with the strategic plan
- Leads the data design and visualization for key operational and financial data analysis used for financial and regulatory reporting as well as operations management and leadership decision making
Department
School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Administration, Fiscal Affairs
The Office of Fiscal Affairs provides fiscal and administrative support to more than 50 departments, centers, institutes and administrative units within the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. The office also provides assistance for a variety of funding types, including school funding, grants, gifts and recharge funds.
Compensation
The starting salary for the position is $205,000 annually; but is negotiable based on experience and qualifications.
Employees in this position can expect to receive benefits such as generous vacation, holidays, and sick leave; competitive insurances and savings accounts; retirement benefits. For more information, refer to the campus benefits webpage and the SMPH FAASLI Benefits Flyer 2026.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of progressive experience in leading financial management, budgeting, accounting, financial analysis, or related functions
- Experience developing and implementing financial policies, procedures, and internal controls.
- Experience leading financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting activities.
- Experience supervising, developing, and evaluating professional staff.
- Experience working with financial management systems, reporting tools, and data analytics platforms.
- Experience building collaborative relationships with senior leaders, business partners, and external stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in higher education, healthcare, or government.
- Experience leading cross-functional strategic initiatives and organizational change efforts.
- Experience developing financial dashboards, data visualizations, and performance metrics to support executive decision-making.
Education
Bachelor's Degree preferred
How to Apply
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To apply for this position, select either "I am a current employee" or "I am not a current employee" under Apply Now. You will then be prompted to upload your application materials.
Important: The application has only one attachment field. Upload the following documents in that field, either as a single combined file or as multiple files in the same upload area.
- Cover letter (required)
- Resume (required)
Your cover letter should address how your training and experience align with the Required and Preferred Qualifications. Application reviewers will rely on these written materials to determine which applicants move forward in the process. References will be requested from final candidates. All applicants will be notified once the search concludes and a candidate is selected.
University sponsorship is not available for this position, including transfers of sponsorship and TN visas. The selected applicant will be responsible for ensuring their continuous eligibility to work in the United States (i.e. a citizen or national of the United States, a lawful permanent resident, a foreign national authorized to work in the United States without the need of an employer sponsorship) on or before the effective date of appointment. This position is an ongoing position that will require continuous work eligibility. If you are selected for this position you must provide proof of work authorization and eligibility to work.
The department will not be able to support a request for a J-1 waiver. If you choose to pursue a waiver and apply for our position, neither the UW nor UWMF will reimburse you for your legal or waiver fees.
Contact Information
Aisha Liebenow, liebenow@wisc.edu
Relay Access (WTRS): 7-1-1. See RELAY_SERVICE for further information.