Manager, Strategic Finance

Paul Hastings is a leading international law firm that provides innovative legal solutions to many of the world’s top financial institutions and Fortune Global 500 companies. With a strong presence throughout the U.S., Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, we have the global reach and extensive capabilities to provide personalized service wherever our clients’ needs take us. As one of the world’s leading law firms, we seek dynamic individuals who share our commitment to service, innovation, and professional growth.

Manager, Strategic Finance

Boston, New York

Regular

We have an opening for a Manager, Strategic Finance. The Manager, Strategic Finance is a key member of the Finance team responsible for managing the execution of the firm’s budgeting, forecasting, expense management, and financial planning processes. Reporting to the Director of Strategic Finance, this role partners closely with Finance leadership, firm management, practice leaders, and administrative department heads to strengthen financial planning, enhance operational decision-making, and support the firm’s strategic and financial objectives.

A primary responsibility of this position is advancing the firm’s project-based budgeting framework by strengthening budgeting processes, improving governance and consistency, and providing greater visibility into project-level financial performance to support informed resource allocation and operational decision-making. The Manager will partner with budget owners across the firm to enhance planning, accountability, cost transparency, and forecasting discipline while identifying opportunities to refine budgeting methodologies, financial processes, and reporting capabilities.

The Manager will also play a key role in the continued evolution of the firm’s expense management program by partnering on procure-to-pay processes, strengthening financial controls, and enhancing reporting and business intelligence capabilities that provide leaders with timely, actionable insights into financial performance.

• Manage the firm’s budgeting process by coordinating with firm leadership, practice group leaders, and administrative department heads to develop comprehensive operating, workforce, and project-based budgets aligned with the firm’s strategic priorities;
• Strengthen the firm’s project-based budgeting framework by refining methodologies, enhancing governance and consistency, and implementing process improvements that improve planning, forecasting accuracy, financial transparency, and operational effectiveness;
• Serve as the primary finance business partner to practice group leaders and administrative department heads by evaluating budget requests, monitoring budget performance and forecasts, performing variance analysis, identifying risks and opportunities, developing financial models and scenario analyses, and recommending actions that support informed decision-making;
• Enhance financial reporting by expanding budget-to-actual analytics that provide budget owners, stakeholders, and firm leadership with timely, actionable insights into spending trends, project performance, forecasts, key performance indicators, and overall financial performance;
• Identify and implement opportunities to improve budgeting, forecasting, expense management, and reporting processes through workflow standardization, automation, enhanced data quality, and other continuous improvement initiatives;
• Promote the consistent application of governance over budgeting, forecasting, approvals, and financial accountability through standardized financial policies, processes, and internal controls across the firm;
• Support the continued maturation of the firm’s expense management function by partnering with Finance and Procurement to implement and optimize procure-to-pay (P2P) processes, approval workflows, financial controls, and expense governance that promote accountability, transparency, and compliance;
• Partner with Finance and business stakeholders to refine general ledger account structure, expense coding practices, and expense reporting, promoting consistent…