Director of Finance

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Mar 11

North Bennet Street School
Boston, MA

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Purpose Statement

The renowned North Bennet Street School (NBSS), an esteemed Boston institution where the time-honored tradition of fine craftsmanship remains a vital influence on the City’s culture and economy, seeks a collaborative and experienced Director of Finance who can move seamlessly between thought partnership and tactical execution to help the School reach ambitious goals, anticipate future needs, and establish best financial practices.

With a refreshed strategic plan underway and a newly forming operations team coming together, this is a special moment to bolster finance and accounting systems and design integrated business processes to make it more fully possible for NBSS faculty, staff, and students to do their best work. This role is well-suited to a proactive, analytical, detail-oriented, and hands-on finance manager with a successful track record of teamwork, creative problem-solving and effective resource management.

The Position

Reporting to the Senior Director of People and Operations, the Director will oversee finance, accounting, and reporting activities for an $8M budget as well as reporting on its $29M endowment. They will serve as the senior advisor and partner to the President, Provost, and Board of Directors in all financial activity including annual planning and budgeting; and ensure that NBSS has the systems and workflows in place to support outstanding program implementation and mission attainment.

This role is uniquely student-facing. 70% of NBSS students receive financial aid, so experience in financial aid management or a similar federal funding model is highly desired, although on-the-job training in this area will be provided. The Director will partner with the Scholarship Committee, a cross-department team of student services, development, enrollment, and financial aid, to manage and inform the scholarship budget and ensure that students are being served by the School from a financial standpoint.

The Director will also be charged with identifying new opportunities to improve efficiencies and respond proactively to department needs. This includes partnering with the Development team as they report out to corporate and foundation funders, and with the Provost’s office particularly during financial aid cycles each semester to ensure that payments and reimbursements are administered properly and efficiently. They will need to analyze the existing processes to ensure compliance and mitigate risk, work closely with senior administrators to streamline financial operations, leverage new information technology, and establish standard processes that provide maximum benefit to all parties involved, including students.

The Candidate

NBSS seeks a seasoned professional with creativity, enthusiasm, self-motivation and energy. They should be able to quickly contribute in a meaningful way as a highly effective and engaged partner to senior leadership; use the utmost discretion in all presentations, correspondence, and communication with staff, faculty, Board of Directors, and President; and be able to thrive in a small team environment, where members “roll up their sleeves”, to deliver practical internal support to colleagues and students.

The desired candidate will bring finance and accounting experience in a mission-driven, growth environment along with a quick-thinking, flexible, and inclusive approach that appreciates the need for consensus while driving progress against stated goals. They will embody systems thinking, able to shift between strategy and execution - translating ideas to tactics that affect targeted outcomes. They must also bring the cultural fluency, kindness, customer-service orientation, and authenticity necessary to represent the institution and serve as a key liaison to its audiences.