Director Divisional Financial Planning & Analysis

Company

Alaska Airlines

The Director, Divisional Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) sets the long-term financial strategy and oversees financial performance at Alaska Airlines, working with division leadership to support the operation while containing costs. The Director, divisional FP&A is embedded in the division and acts as the CFO for the group to drive operating and capital expense discipline and value-added analysis.

• Establish strategic goals and direction for a finance team responsible for providing all aspects of finance support. Provides timely feedback, direction, coaching, and development opportunities.
• Set long‑term strategy for budgeting as the primary financial partner to divisional leadership (e.g., MDs and VPs), performing routine monthly close, forecasting, and ad hoc analyses to inform operational and strategic decisions for the division.
• Lead the budgeting strategy and planning process, by providing support to division leadership in strategy execution through integrated, divisionally‑owned budget plans tied to key financial and operational metrics.
• Ensure timely and accurate monthly closing, forecasting and reporting processes.
• Review monthly financial and metric performance with division leadership to identify key variances, trends, and potential issues that may materially impact performance.
• Dive deeper into variances and trends to understand underlying drivers (root cause analysis) and helps drive structural fixes and realignment with cost trajectory.
• Drive continuous improvements in annual budget process and ensures timely, accurate loading of financial budget data.
• Manage investments through ownership of the business case process and capital management.
• Provides consultation to key stakeholders by leveraging financial expertise by advising on important decisions, conducting ad hoc analysis, and promoting good financial literacy within the company.
• Develop and maintain financial models for key company activities such as 3‑year modeling and metrics reporting, productivity modeling, regional airline allocation and performance, what‑if scenarios, etc., leveraging the power of the TM1 system wherever possible.
• Stays abreast of industry trends and competitive performance and uses that information to generate ideas and drive improvements in AAG’s performance.
• Develop people through effective performance management and ongoing feedback, focusing on fostering strategic and systems thinking, development of talent, and succession planning across teams and disciplines.
• Shape culture of the team through action, presence and reinforcement of behaviors.

• 8 years of direct financial planning and analysis experience.
• 5 years of leadership experience, with at least 2 of those years directly leading people.
• Bachelor’s degree with a focus in accounting or economics, or an additional two years of training/experience in lieu of this degree.
• A strong working knowledge/experience of key financial tools such as NPV, ROIC, cash flow, activity‑based costing, and maintaining large data sets.
• Proven ability to leverage business acumen and analytic capability to act as critical business partner for the organization.
• A strong track record of effectively leading/working with cross‑functional teams, driving meaningful changes, and developing and mentoring others.
• A self‑starter comfortable with ambiguity, willingly takes the initiative, accepts responsibility, able to analyze complex data and summarize in a concise manner, and make meaningful business recommendations in a timely fashion.
• Ability to have tough conversations to drive the right business decision without sacrificing the positive working relationship with the division.
• Highly proficient with Microsoft Office applications (e.g., Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Access).
• High school diploma or equivalent.
• Minimum age of 18.
• Must be authorized to work in the U.S.

• A Master’s degree in business administration, finance, economics, math, or statistics.
• CPA and/or CFA qualifications.
• 5 years of experience working in the airline industry or related fields.
• Experience with People Soft, Cognos TM1,…