Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Manager - Compensation and Workforce Planning

Western Alliance Bancorporation; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity ownership

Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Paid time off

401(k) matching

Tuition assistance

Volunteer program

Wellness program

Job summary

Western Alliance Bancorporation seeks a Senior FP&A Manager for Compensation and Workforce Planning to lead incentive compensation tracking, budgeting, and forecasting with cross-functional collaboration across Finance, HR, and Accounting.

You will oversee workforce planning, headcount modeling, and management reporting to senior leadership, ensuring accurate financial outcomes aligned with business performance. Banking experience is preferred.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Analytics, or related field required; MBA, CPA, or CFA preferred.
• 7+ years of progressive 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 connecting drivers, plan assumptions, production trends, and expense outcomes.
• Experience supporting incentive compensation, sales performance reporting, workforce expense planning, or revenue-based compensation programs preferred.
• Strong analytical and data validation skills with emphasis on accuracy, consistency, controls, documentation, and governance.
• Ability to lead cross-functional processes and partner across Finance, HR, Compensation, Accounting, data governance, and business line leadership.
• Advanced proficiency in Excel and PowerPoint; experience with Oracle EPBCS, Adaptive Insights, Anaplan, Power BI, Workday, Varicent or similar platforms preferred.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills to explain complex financial concepts to finance and non-finance stakeholders.
• Experience in banking or financial services is preferred.

Responsibilities

• 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 with documented assumptions.
• Oversee enterprise FTE tracking and forecasting, providing insights on hiring trends, turnover, and workforce capacity for budgeting and planning.
• Coordinate consolidated workforce planning across business lines and support functions, including headcount, salary and benefits assumptions.
• Serve as the primary Finance partner to business line leaders to understand sales performance, production trends, plan attainment, and drivers of incentive expense.
• Oversee models connecting incentive plan metrics, sales activity, eligible revenue or production, payout assumptions, accruals, and forecasted expense.
• Prepare and present management reporting and analysis explaining incentive compensation performance and workforce trends.
• Lead data validation for incentive-eligible financial metrics ensuring HR system data accuracy.
• Establish repeatable processes, controls, documentation, and governance for incentive planning, workforce planning, reporting, accruals, and forecast management.
• Partner with the Incentives team to improve reporting automation and transparency into outcomes.
• Provide financial leadership and decision support for incentive plan changes and strategic initiatives.

Skills

Cross-functional leadership

Financial modeling

Incentive compensation

Budgeting

Forecasting

Variance analysis

Management reporting

Data validation

Excel

PowerPoint

Power BI

Education

Bachelor's degree in Finance

MBA/CPA/CFA preferred

Tools

Oracle EPBCS

Adaptive Insights

Anaplan

Power BI

Workday

Varicent

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.

Benefits you'll love:

We offer all the important things you'd want - like competitive salaries, an ownership stake in the company, medical and dental insurance, time off, a great 401k matching program, tuition assistance program, an employee volunteer program, and a wellness program. In addition, you'll have the opportunity to bolster your business knowledge, learning the ins and outs of how successful companies operate and manage their finances, giving you invaluable hands-on experience to help grow your career!

About the company:

Western Alliance Bank, Member FDIC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Alliance Bancorporation. Serving clients nationwide, Western Alliance Bank includes six legacy bank brands - Alliance Association Bank, Alliance Bank of Arizona, Bank of Nevada, Bridge Bank, First Independent Bank and Torrey Pines Bank - that remain part of the company's heritage, as well as AmeriHome Mortgage, a Western Alliance Bank Company.

Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to equal employment and will consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, sex, color, religion, age, nation origin, marital status, disability, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or genetic information. Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process and/or need an alternative method of applying, please email [e-mail] or call 602-386-2488. When contacting us, please provide your contact information and state the nature of your accessibility issue. We will only respond to inquiries concerning requests that involve a reasonable accommodation in the application process.

Western Alliance Bancorporation