Director, Finance Business Partner - Technology

About the role

As Director, Finance Business Partner - Technology, you will play a pivotal role in aligning our business strategies with our internal technological group to optimize financial operations, enhance decision-making processes, and drive overall business performance. This position requires a strategic thinker with a strong understanding of finance, who can implement data driven innovative solutions and provide strong financial leadership to the business to streamline financial processes and maximize efficiency. 

Collaboration, partnership, and active stakeholder management are foundational to success in this role and you will be required to provide strong leadership to the technology groups to help connect the financial impacts of business decisions and serve as a sounding board in making decisions that are in line with the strategy of the business.  

Reporting to the VP Finance, of Pearson VUE, the role will be supported by a direct team and a shared services team run through the (PFS) Pearson Financial Services. The role will be responsible for approx. $100m of Technology spend and 3 major proprietary testing systems. 

 

Compensation at Pearson is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and specific location. As required by the Colorado, California, Washington State, New York State and New York City laws, the pay range for this position is as follows:

The full-time salary range is between $140,000 - $160,000 per annum.

 

Key Responsibilities: 

Financial Planning and Analysis: 

• Lead the VUE technology financial planning and analysis process: including assisting in setting targets, long range and annual budgeting, monthly rolling forecasting, and variance analysis. 
• Manage the technology budgeting process, working closely with department heads to balance the business needs vs what the business can afford. 
• Monitor actual performance against budgeted targets, analyze variances, and implement corrective actions as needed to ensure financial objectives are met.
• Focus on forecast accuracy led by a data driven analysis connected with the business. 

VUE’s proprietary testing systems 

• VUE’s revenue is driven from multiple proprietary testing systems.
• Within each of these systems this role will be responsible for the fiscal impact from business planning, creation of additional features, maintaining current functionality, Interaction points to the GL and maintaining documentation so that the global teams understand all interaction points.  
• Review time reporting tool to examine if this can be improved.
• Review current manual interaction of the proprietary testing systems with Oracle to find ways to automate and streamline this process.

Financial Controls 

• Owner of VUE Financial Controls linked to VUE’s proprietary testing systems; keeps controls current, ensure they are completed and reviewed on time, and that we are coordinated with group control and external audit.  
• Partners with the other VUE Directors, the VP of PVUE Finance, group control and internal/external Audit teams as a team to ensure VUE is complying. 

Cost models and Business cases 

• Ensure that Technology spend follows a financial business case process which will provide a systematic approach to evaluating and prioritizing investment opportunities. All models' cases should support maintaining existing revenue, creating new revenue, or adding features which provide operational efficiency and are supported by ROI balancing while balancing capital prioritization. 
• Ensuring that all capital spend is supported by business cases which are approved and can both be reported on monthly and variance to spend explained and followed up on. 
• Clearly communicate and provide feedback through the business case process. 

Cost Control and Optimization: 

• Implement cost control measures and initiatives to optimize spending, reduce waste, and improve efficiency. 
• Develop and maintain cost reduction programs, cost containment strategies, and cost benchmarking analyses to drive continuous improvement. 
• Implement best practices, automation tools, and process improvements to standardize financial reporting, analysis, and decision-making. 

Cross-Functional Collaboration: 

• Work closely with finance teams, operational leaders, and other stakeholders to align cost management strategies with business objectives and financial targets. 
• Build strong relationships and partnerships across departments to foster collaboration, communication, and account