Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Manager - Compensation and Workforce Planning

westernalliancebank; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Western Alliance Bank seeks a Senior FP&A Manager focused on compensation and workforce planning to lead incentive compensation budgeting, forecasting, and headcount planning. You will partner with HR, Accounting, Data Governance and Finance leadership to translate incentives and workforce trends into budgets and management reports.

You will drive data validation, encourage reporting automation, and provide clear insights to senior management.

Responsibilities

• Lead incentive compensation budgeting, forecasting, accruals and variance explanations.
• Own annual budget and monthly forecast processes for incentive compensation expense.
• Oversee workforce planning, including headcount, salary, and benefits assumptions.
• Partner with HR, Accounting, Data Governance and Finance leadership to link incentive outcomes to budgets.
• Present management reporting and insights on compensation and workforce trends.
• Drive data validation for incentive metrics and ensure HR system data accuracy.
• Develop repeatable controls, governance, and documentation for planning and forecasting.

Job description

Job Title: Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Manager - Compensation and Workforce Planning

Location: CityScape

What you'll do:

• As the Senior FP&A Manager, Compensation and Workforce Planning, you will serve as the finance lead supporting the bank's sales incentive program, with responsibility for the tracking, reporting, budgeting, and forecasting of incentive compensation, as well as consolidated workforce planning across the organization. This role will be critical to the overall program by ensuring incentive-related financial results and workforce expense assumptions are accurate, transparent, well-controlled, and aligned with business performance. The Manager will partner closely with business leaders, Human Resources, Accounting, Business Data Governance, and Finance leadership to connect incentive plan outcomes and workforce trends to budget expectations, forecast assumptions, business line performance, and management reporting. Success in this role requires strong financial judgment, ownership mindset, cross-functional leadership, and the ability to translate complex incentive compensation and workforce data into clear insights and recommendations for senior management.
• Lead recurring FP&A reporting for incentive compensation, including actual results, budget comparisons, forecast updates, accrual trends, variance explanations, and management commentary.
• Own the annual budget and monthly forecast processes for incentive compensation expense, ensuring assumptions are clearly documented, analytically supported, and aligned with business performance expectations.
• Oversee enterprise FTE tracking and forecasting, providing insights on hiring trends, turnover, and workforce capacity to executive leadership. Ensure continuity and consistency in FTE planning for budgeting and strategic planning across the organization.
• Coordinate consolidated workforce planning across business lines and support functions, including headcount, salary and benefits assumptions, hiring plans, vacancies, productivity trends, and related expense impacts.
• Serve as the primary Finance partner to business line leaders to understand sales performance, production trends, plan attainment, and key drivers of incentive compensation expense.
• Oversee models that connect incentive plan metrics, sales activity, eligible revenue or production, payout assumptions, accruals, and forecasted expense.
• Prepare and present management reporting and analysis that explains incentive compensation performance, consolidated workforce trends, forecast risks and opportunities, and potential impacts to business line and enterprise financial results.
• Lead data validation efforts related to incentive-eligible financial metrics to ensure the data ingested into our HR system is accurate. This includes fee revenue, production activity, business line results, and other financial inputs used in incentive calculations.
• Establish repeatable processes, controls, documentation, and governance routines for incentive compensation planning, workforce planning, reporting, accruals, and forecast management.
• Partner with the Incentives team to identify and lead opportunities to improve reporting automation, reduce manual tracking, strengthen auditability, and increase transparency into incentive compensation outcomes.
• Provide financial leadership and decision support for incentive plan changes, business performance reviews, management questions, and strategic initiatives.

What you'll need:

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Analytics, or related field required; MBA, CPA, or CFA preferred.
• 7+ years of progressive experience in FP&A, financial analysis, incentive compensation, sales finance, corporate finance, or management reporting.
• Demonstrated experience owning budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, accruals, and management reporting processes.
• Strong financial modeling skills with the ability to connect business drivers, plan assumptions, production trends, and expense outcomes.
• Experience supporting incentive compensation, sales performance reporting, workforce expense planning, or revenue-based compensation programs strongly preferred.
• Strong analytical and data validation skills, with attention to accuracy, consistency, controls, documentation, and governance.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional processes and partner effectively across Finance, Human Resources, Compensation, Accounting, data governance, and business line leadership.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint; experience with planning, reporting, or incentive systems such as Oracle EPBCS, Adaptive Insights, Anaplan, Power BI, Workday, Varicent, or similar platforms preferred.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills with the ability to explain complex financial and incentive compensation concepts clearly to finance and non-finance stakeholders, including senior management.
• Experience in banking or financial services is preferred.