Director, Financial Planning & Analysis

Hearst Corporation; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Disability insurance

Life insurance

401(k) retirement plan

Paid holidays

Paid time off

Employee assistance program

Job summary

Hearst Technology Services seeks a Director, IT Finance to lead FP&A for the technology division. You will own planning, forecasting, budgeting, and reporting, partnering with technology heads and corporate finance to translate cost into strategic investment decisions.

The role manages the FP&A team and drives a clean close, insightful analytics, and strong partnership with Sourcing, TBM, and accounting. A demanding, high-impact leadership position in New York.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field.
• CPA, CFA, or CMA certification.
• Seven+ years of progressive FP&A experience with budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and management reporting.
• Experience owning a full planning cycle end to end and presenting to senior management.
• Strong financial analysis, projection, and modeling skills.
• Experience managing people and a monthly close process.
• Working knowledge of operations, cost structures, and accounting principles.
• Proven business partner in a multi-unit environment.
• Excellent listening and communication skills for executive audiences.

Responsibilities

• Own the monthly forecast for operating, project, and capital expenses with a defensible view.
• Lead the annual budget cycle for technology towers; build calendar, assumptions, and board-ready plan.
• Drive capital planning with ROI analysis and funding recommendations.
• Model impact of organizational and vendor changes, including run-rate savings and transition costs.
• Deliver monthly P&L, G&A, and budget variance analyses with root-cause explanations.
• Maintain the management reporting package and automate where possible.
• Surface budget inconsistencies and control gaps with supporting analysis.
• Develop analytics to answer forward-looking questions for leadership.

Skills

Budgeting

Forecasting

Variance analysis

Management reporting

People management

Financial modeling

Executive communication

Cross-functional partnering

Education

Bachelor's degree in Accounting/Finance

CPA/CFA/CMA

Tools

Oracle ERP

AI tools in finance (Claude/ChatGPT)

TBM concepts

Job description

The Director, IT Finance owns financial planning and analysis for Hearst Technology Services — the forecast, the annual budget cycle, the monthly close, the management reporting package, and the analysis that supports investment decisions across the technology division.

This is a leadership role for an experienced FP&A professional. The Director manages the Manager, FP&A and the analyst team beneath that role, and partners directly with technology department heads and with the Sourcing, Technology Business Management, and corporate accounting teams — translating technology cost into decisions about investment and run-rate reduction. Success is measured by forecast accuracy, a clean and on-time close, and the quality of the insight delivered to senior management.

What You'll Do

Planning, Forecasting & Budgeting

• Own the monthly forecast for operating expense, project expense, and capital, consolidating inputs from technology department heads into a single defensible view.
• Lead the annual budget cycle for assigned technology towers: build the calendar, set assumptions, challenge submissions, and deliver a board-ready plan.
• Drive the capital planning process — validate business cases, build financial models, quantify ROI and payback, and make funding recommendations to senior management.
• Model the financial impact of organizational, vendor, and architecture changes, including multi-year run-rate savings and one-time transition costs.

Reporting & Analysis

• Deliver monthly P&L, G&A, and budgetary status reporting to IT senior management with variance analysis against budget and forecast, root-cause explanation, and recommended remediation.
• Build and maintain the recurring management reporting package — reducing manual preparation through automation and standardization rather than headcount.
• Surface budgetary inconsistencies, control gaps, or improprieties to senior management promptly and with supporting analysis.
• Develop the analytics that answer forward-looking questions from leadership, not only what was spent but what is likely to be spent and what should change.

Business Partnership & Operations

• Serve as the finance partner to assigned technology department heads — understand their roadmap, align forecast to delivery, and flag risk before it materializes in the actuals.
• Work with Technology Sourcing & Vendor Management on the financial analysis supporting contract negotiations, renewals, and consolidation decisions.
• Support the Technology Business Management team on intercompany assessments — reconcile differences against the general ledger and supply the financial inputs the cost model depends on.
• Anticipate risk, adjust plans, and keep leadership informed early — no surprises at month end.

Month-End Close & Financial Operations

• Own the monthly close for the technology division — accruals, journal entries, and reclasses — working with the corporate accountant to close the books accurately and on schedule.
• Manage the IT invoice process: review and approve invoices, confirm general ledger coding and cost centre assignment, and resolve exceptions before they reach the close.
• Oversee purchase requisitions and purchase orders — validate budget availability and coding at request, and keep open commitments and aged POs current.
• Maintain the close calendar and hold the division to it; drive down the number of post-close adjustments period over period.

Leadership

• Manage the Manager, FP&A — set priorities, review output, and develop the role toward broader financial leadership; oversee the analyst team through that position.
• Set standards for analytical rigor, documentation, and turnaround across the FP&A function.
• Improve how the team works: standardize recurring deliverables, eliminate low-value manual effort, and raise the baseline quality of financial output.
• Represent IT Finance in cross-functional initiatives and senior management forums.

What You'll Bring

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a closely related business discipline.
• CPA, CFA, or CMA.
• Seven or more years of progressive FP&A experience, with demonstrated depth in budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and management reporting.
• Experience owning a full planning cycle end to end — assumptions, consolidation, review, and presentation to senior management.
• Strong financial statement analysis, projection, and financial modeling skills.
• Experience managing people, including managing a manager or team lead.
• Hands-on experience owning or supporting a monthly close, including accruals and reconciliation with an accounting team.
• Working knowledge of business operations, cost structures, and cost drivers, with a fundamental understanding of accounting principles.
• Proven success as a business partner in a client-service environment spanning multiple business units and stakeholder levels.
• Excellent listening and communication skills, with the ability to deliver clear, well-organized presentations and written correspondence to executive audiences.
• Strong personal time management and the ability to run several projects simultaneously against fixed close and planning deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Technology Business Management experience, or familiarity with a technology chargeback, showback, or cost allocation model.
• Working knowledge of Oracle ERP.
• Practical experience applying AI tools such as Claude or ChatGPT to financial analysis, reporting, and workflow automation.
• Familiarity with cloud cost management or FinOps practices.
• IT finance or shared-services finance experience.
• Strong interest in working within technology.

What Success Looks Like in Year One

• Forecast variance is narrow, explainable, and trusted by both HTS leadership and business unit finance.
• The monthly reporting package is faster to produce and more useful to the people who receive it.
• Capital and project funding decisions are supported by models leadership trusts without re-checking.
• Technology department heads treat this role as their first call on any decision with a financial consequence.

Hearst provides a competitive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance, 401(k), paid holidays and paid time off, employee assistance programs, and more.