Business Analyst

MUST BE LOCATED IN THE DES PLAINES/CHICACO, IL AREA

The Business Analyst plays a key role in supporting financial visibility, operational performance, and decision‑making across AES USA. This position partners closely with operations, commercial teams, and finance leadership to provide data‑driven insights, support financial planning, and improve overall business performance. The role focuses on developing and maintaining reporting tools, analyzing financial and operational data, and supporting budgeting and forecasting processes.

The Business Analyst will help identify opportunities for improvement, enhance reporting capabilities, and contribute to strategic initiatives across the organization.

As AES continues to grow in the Americas, this role will evolve to support broader regional initiatives, including expansion into new markets and alignment with global finance practices.

• Analyze financial performance through detailed margin analysis, reconciliations, variance analysis, and operational and financial KPIs.
• Prepare monthly, quarterly, and annual performance reviews and financial analysis based on reported results.
• Support budgeting and forecasting processes by consolidating inputs, analyzing variances, and providing performance insights to leadership.
• Build and maintain financial models to support business planning, pricing strategies, and investment decisions.

• Design and implement an analytical accounting framework to enable margin visibility and performance tracking by activity, station, and contract.
• Identify margin leakage and operational inefficiencies and partner with operations to implement corrective actions.
• Develop and maintain margin reporting by airport and customer to support profitability analysis and strategic decision‑making.
• Establish costing methodologies for refurbishment and manufacturing activities including labor productivity, bill of materials, throughput, and efficiency KPIs.

• Own the development and maintenance of dashboards and reporting tools to monitor operational performance (utilization, productivity, margins, turnaround times, and cost per activity).
• Act as a financial business partner to operations by providing insights, identifying risks and opportunities, and constructively challenging performance and cost assumptions.
• Lead performance review cycles and present financial results in a clear and business‑oriented manner.
• Challenge operational teams on cost discipline, productivity, and contract profitability to drive continuous improvement.

• Serve as a key contributor to the development and optimization of financial systems (ERP, reporting tools, BI platforms).
• Drive process improvements through simplification, automation, and standardization of financial and operational workflows.
• Support the automation and distribution of operational and financial dashboards to ensure timely access to performance data.
• Act as a key user for financial and operational systems (e.g., EAM, Sun Systems, Infor), supporting system enhancements and data integrity.

• Lead ad hoc financial analyses to support strategic initiatives, pricing decisions, operational improvements, and investment planning.
• Participate in cross‑functional projects such as new contract implementations, cost optimization initiatives, procurement improvements, and market expansion efforts.
• Travel periodically to operational sites and airports to maintain strong business alignment and understanding of field operations.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements and/or preferred skills listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• 3-5 years of experience in business controlling, operational finance, or financial analysis within a multi‑site or operational…