Head of Allocations Strategy and Planning
Financial Statement Optimization (FSO) is a new team within Financial Planning and Analysis composed of professionals with diverse backgrounds in actuarial science, capital management, consulting, investment banking and tax planning, among other disciplines. FSO is responsible for identifying and executing opportunities to optimize MassMutual’s financial position and results and to create enduring value through capital markets transactions, reinsurance, structured transactions, tax planning and similar initiatives. FSO is a vital partner to MassMutual’s enterprise strategy, corporate development and competitive market intelligence team.
FSO is also building an enterprise cost of capital framework and developing returns measures, including return on equity and return on invested capital, to inform future capital allocation and planning.
The Lead, Corporate Allocations is a new position that will sit within FSO. This individual will be responsible for working with a large number of business, finance and other leaders and professionals across the enterprise to build a comprehensive, robust allocations framework (expenses, earnings, capital, etc.). The Lead, Corporate Allocations will also establish policies, procedures and reporting processes to ensure that all allocation-related decisions, and the methodologies behind them, are documented and maintained. This work will have a deep and lasting impact on product strategy, capital allocation, financial forecasting and resource planning, among other efforts.
This individual will have to develop strong relationships with the business units, accounting policy, enterprise risk management, investment management, tax planning and others to ensure collaboration and information sharing. This individual must be an effective business partner with excellent facilitation and conflict resolution skills. In addition, this individual will have to be able to exert influence outside formal reporting lines—and both 'up and down' the enterprise.
This individual must be an effective communicator, able to distill and translate complex issues into 'plain English' while answering the 'so what?'. The Lead, Corporate Allocations will present to ELT and other senior leaders and must be able to tailor messages to the target audience. Finally, things move very quickly at MassMutual and especially within Financial Planning and Analysis, and so this individual must be able to 'roll with it'.
Key Responsibilities:
- Support a wide range of financial optimization projects
- Support the development of long-term capital plans, including allocation of resources and alignment of initiatives with business objectives
- Understand how MassMutual’s product offering compares to that of peers through capital, returns and other lenses
- Support ad hoc financial and strategic analyses, as required
- Serve as subject matter expert on all aspects of capital and cost allocations
- Support continuous improvement initiatives in financial forecasting and capital planning
Qualifications:
- Preferred: Master’s degree in business administration, finance or related discipline. Bachelor’s degree in accounting, actuarial science, economics, finance or related discipline
- Minimum of eight years of progressive financial analysis, control and reporting experience within a multi-entity environment
- Strong understanding of accounting (GAAP and statutory) and corporate finance principles
- Strong knowledge of performance management, data modeling, financial analysis and reporting tools (e.g., Hyperion, Oracle, SAP)
- 'Problem solver': articulates, conceptualizes and solves problems with available information
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to express ideas in an articulate, organized and persuasive manner. Proven ability to influence senior leaders
- Intellectual curiosity with a focus on efficiency and continuous improvement
- Able to model positive change management, leading individuals and teams through new operating models and methodologies and creating opportunities for discussion and deliberation
- Resilient team player
- Can juggle multiple priorities and competing deadlines. Remains calm under pressure
- Proficient in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word
- Able to travel between Boston, MA and Springfield, MA as needed