Finance Manager, Portfolio Strategy & Analytics

Ascend Learning; Leawood (KS); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible PTO

Medical, dental, vision insurance

401(k) matching

Parental leave

Wellness resources

Charitable matching

On-site workout facilities

Job summary

Ascend Learning, a tech-enabled services company, seeks a Finance Senior Manager to join a hybrid team in Leawood, KS or Burlington, MA. You will enable data-informed decision-making across Ascend’s product portfolio, ensuring R&D investments are aligned and prioritized.

You’ll partner with Product, Technology, and the PMO to analyze the roadmap, assess progress, and present recommendations to senior leaders. Strong analytics and storytelling are essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, business analytics, or a related field.
• 7+ years of portfolio management, business or financial analytics, strategic planning, or related function.
• Strong analytical and storytelling skills—distill complex data into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management, including presenting to senior executives.
• Advanced Excel; proficiency in Power BI or Tableau; experience with financial software (Planful or others).
• Comfort working with ambiguity and imperfect data; ability to iterate and improve.

Responsibilities

• Partner with product leaders and governance committees to assess progress, identify risks, and support strategic roadmap decisions.
• Conduct scenario modelling and develop insights to inform investment tradeoffs, resource planning, and sequencing of roadmap initiatives.
• Monitor and report on project status, timeline shifts, resourcing challenges, and budget variances; propose mitigations.
• Collaborate with PMO and Product Operations to improve transparency across development workflows and capital planning.
• Support capital planning and strategic investment review cycles with analyses on capacity, cost, ROI, and alignment.
• Develop and maintain models, dashboards, and reports for governance meetings and executive reviews.
• Drive process improvements to evaluate, prioritize, and track product and tech investments.
• Serve as a connector between Finance and Product to align roadmap decisions with enterprise goals.

Skills

Portfolio management

Advanced Excel

Power BI

Tableau

Stakeholder mgmt

Analytical storytelling

Education

Bachelor’s degree in finance or related field

Tools

Planful

Job description

Ascend Learning, a tech-enabled services company, seeks a Finance Senior Manager to join a hybrid team in Leawood, KS or Burlington, MA. You will enable data-informed decision-making across Ascend’s product portfolio, ensuring R&D investments are aligned and prioritized.

You’ll partner with Product, Technology, and the PMO to analyze the roadmap, assess progress, and present recommendations to senior leaders. Strong analytics and storytelling are essential.