Application Open:
Full-Time
The Associate Business Partner, Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) serves as the dedicated business partner for the Academic Division, under the guidance of the Assistant Director of FP&A. The role works closely with the Dean, academic leadership, and key stakeholders to support the division’s financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and performance management activities. The role provides strategic financial insights, analysis, and recommendations to support informed decision-making, financial governance, and sustainable planning across academic and research activities. It also supports grant-related financial planning and monitoring in coordination with the Grant Management team, ensuring alignment with approved budgets, funding requirements, and institutional priorities.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Insights
- Acts as the FP&A Business Partner for the Academic Division, providing strategic financial insights and recommendations to support the Dean, academic leadership, research stakeholders, and FP&A leadership.
- Leads financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, analysis, and performance reporting for academic and research activities, ensuring alignment with institutional priorities and approved budgets.
- Leads the development of multi-year financial plans, models, and scenarios to support Academic Division priorities, research growth, funding sustainability, and strategic resource allocation.
- Provides financial advice and decision support for academic programs, research initiatives, grant-funded projects, and strategic investments within the Academic Division.
- Works closely with the Grant Management team to support grant-related financial planning, monitoring, and reporting, while identifying financial risks, funding gaps, cost pressures, and efficiency opportunities.
Budgeting, Financial Planning & Reporting
- Leads the end-to-end multi-year and annual budgeting process for the Academic Division covering academic programs, research activities, manpower, OPEX, CAPEX, and grant-funded activities coordinating budget submissions, revisions, reallocations, and consolidation in line with institutional priorities and funding availability.
- Leads quarterly forecasting and performance reviews, tracking actual spend against budget, highlighting variances, risks, and recommended actions, while monitoring budget utilization, funding availability, and financial commitments across academic and research activities.
- Supports the development and continuous refinement of research funding structures, cost allocation models, planning assumptions, and forecasting approaches to reflect academic operational needs, research priorities, grant requirements, and governance standards.
- Ensures compliance with institutional policies, grant requirements, and FP&A governance practices, maintaining data integrity and quality assurance across all financial reporting outputs for the Academic Division.
- Coordinates the annual budget cycle, guiding departments through planning, review, challenge, and consolidation, and ensures timely delivery of recurring financial and budget reports to relevant stakeholders and the FP&A Office.
- Acts as a senior point of support and subject matter resource within the FP&A team, reviewing outputs and contributing to capability building.
Financial Analysis, Insights & Decision Support
- Leads the preparation of financial analyses, reports, dashboards, variance analyses, funding utilization reports, and performance metrics for the Academic Division.
- Provides actionable insights on financial performance, cost structures, funding utilization, academic research activities, and key financial drivers to support the Dean and academic leadership.
- Reviews and validates financial information for Academic Division stakeholders, FP&A leadership, and governance forums to support informed decision-making and financial governance.
- Oversees financial reporting standards, templates, dashboards, analytical tools, and data integrity across academic units, research activities, and reporting outputs.
- Reviews reports, budget submissions, forecasts, and variance analyses prepared by direct reports, while using data analytics, automation, AI-enabled tools, and financial systems to improve reporting accuracy, efficiency, and decision support.
Academic Qualifications Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance, Accounting or a related field.
- A postgraduate qualification (e.g., MBA, CPA, ACCA, or CFA) is preferred.
Professional Experience Required
Essential:
- Minimum of 7–10 years of progressive experience in financial planning and analysis, budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, business partnering, or related finance roles.
- Significant experience supporting academic division, research environments, higher education, grant-funded activities, or complex matrix organizations.
- Demonstrated expertise in strategic financial planning, multi-year budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, advanced financial modelling, and financial performance reporting.
- Experience in research funding, grant management, project-based funding, or similar funding administration environments.
- Proven ability to advise senior stakeholders, translate complex financial information into clear insights, and support strategic and operational decision-making.
- Strong experience designing financial frameworks, governance standards, analytical methodologies, reporting templates, dashboards, and management reports.
- Advanced proficiency in ERP systems, budgeting and forecasting tools, Oracle Fusion, financial systems, and data analytics tools.
- Strong understanding of financial governance, internal controls, budget compliance, reporting standards, and institutional policy requirements.
- Excellent communication, presentation, stakeholder management, influencing, problem-solving, and analytical skills.
- Ability to supervise, guide, coach, and develop team members, with a high level of autonomy, judgment, accountability, attention to detail.
Preferred:
- Experience in UAE higher education, research, or academic environments, with an understanding of the unique budgeting challenges and needs.
- Knowledge of UAE financial policies and procedures.
- ERP implementation experience and working knowledge of finance and budgeting software.
- Experience in applying AI, automation, or advanced analytics in FP&A.
