Financial Planning and Analysis Lead

The FP&A Lead is a highly analytical and hands-on finance professional responsible for delivering high-quality financial planning, analysis, and insights to support business decision-making. This role combines strong technical FP&A expertise, business partnership, and emerging leadership capability. As a trusted advisor to functional leaders, the FP&A Lead translates data into actionable insights, supports financial performance, and drives disciplined execution across planning and reporting processes. In addition, this role plays a key part in advancing digital finance capabilities—leveraging automation, data tools, and emerging technologies to improve efficiency, enhance insights, and modernize FP&A workflows. The ideal candidate is curious, proactive, and detail-oriented, with the ability to operate in ambiguity, challenge existing approaches, and continuously improve how work gets done. This role may oversee 1–3 team members and is expected to lead through ownership, strong execution, and collaborative influence.

• 8+ years w/Bachelor’s degree; 1+ years supervisory/management
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Analytics, or related field
• 5–8 years of experience in FP&A, corporate finance, or related roles
• Curious and growth-oriented with a continuous learning mindset, thrives in ambiguity and adapts quickly to changing priorities, actively challenges existing processes to improve ways of working, demonstrates strong ownership, accountability, and initiative, and maintains resilience and focus under pressure.
• Strong strategic and business acumen with a deep understanding of key financial and operational drivers, applying structured thinking and scenario planning to support decision-making, connecting financial results to operational performance, and identifying trade-offs through data-driven insights.
• Strong expertise in financial modeling, forecasting, and analysis, combined with strong analytical and problem-solving skills and sharp attention to detail, applying structured, data-driven approaches to complex problems while synthesizing large datasets into clear, actionable insights and recommendations.
• Strong communication and influence skills with the ability to communicate clearly and effectively across finance and non-finance stakeholders, building credibility through insightful, fact-based recommendations, and influencing decisions through clarity, logic, and trust rather than authority.
• Strong execution and continuous improvement mindset with the ability to prioritize effectively and focus on high-impact work, consistently deliver accurate and timely outputs, maintain strong documentation and process discipline, and actively contribute to enhancing FP&A processes, tools, and overall efficiency.
• Strong data and technology fluency with advanced Excel and financial modeling skills, experience working with financial systems and data tools, a strong embrace of automation and digital solutions to improve efficiency, and a curious, proactive mindset for applying data and technology to enhance insights and decision-making.
• Experience mentoring or informally leading others
• Experience with ERP/EPM systems (Hyperion, Anaplan, SAP, Oracle, etc.)
• Experience with data visualization tools (Power BI, Tableau, etc.)
• Master of Business Administration (MBA) preferred
• Certified Public Accountant (CPA) preferred
• Certified Financial Analyst preferred
  
  ***Please Note: This is a hybrid position. During the first three months of employment, team members are expected to work onsite approximately three days per week in either our Oakland, CA or Rancho Cordova, CA office for onboarding and training. After this initial period, the role transitions to approximately one day per week onsite. Candidates should be within a reasonable commuting distance of one of these locations.***
  
  Base Pay Information
  
  The national base pay range at the end is a good-faith estimate of what Delta Dental may pay for new hires. Actual pay may vary based on Delta Dental’s assessment of the candidate’s knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs), related experience, education, certifications and ability to meet required minimum job qualifications. Other factors impacting pay include prevailing wages in the work location and internal equity. 
  Pay Grade 22. $92,500 - $200,400

• Build and maintain driver-based financial models, forecasts, and budgets to support planning, forecasting, and analytical rigor across assigned areas.
• Own monthly reporting, forecasting, and annual planning processes, ensuring accuracy, integrity, timeliness, and continuous improvement of financial outputs.
• Perform variance analysis, scenario modeling, and sensitivity analysis to enhance forecasting accuracy and deliver actionable financial insights.
• Serve as a trusted finance partner to functional stakeholders, translating complex financial data into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Evaluate trade-offs, investments, and operational decisions while proactively identifying risks and opportunities using data-driven insights.
• Align financial plans with operational goals and performance targets to support effective business decision-making and execution.
• Provide day-to-day guidance and mentorship to team members (1–3), fostering accountability, learning, high performance, and ongoing capability development.
• Develop executive-ready reports, dashboards, and presentations while leveraging ERP/EPM systems and BI tools for analysis, reporting, and data-driven insights.
• Drive automation, data quality, governance, and continuous enhancement of reporting processes while applying a “citizen data scientist” mindset to improve forecasting, identify trends, and enable predictive analysis.
• Identify inefficiencies and drive process improvement by implementing standardized models, testing new analytical approaches, and ensuring disciplined, consistent execution across all deliverables.