Financial Applications Vice President

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Job Description

Ares is seeking a Financial Applications Vice President in Mumbai to work within the Financial Applications team in Finance. Our Financial Applications team collaborates closely with other team members within the Finance and Accounting organization, IT teams, business stakeholders, end-users, consultants, and Audit/Compliance on the maintenance of the financial applications as well as involvement in certain projects.

This role requires a reliable, detail-oriented and adaptive professional who can function in the day-to-day requests sent by users as well as participate in various projects, including UAT, setup requirements and configuration updates.  Individual should be able to multi-task and transition quickly.  The ideal candidate should quickly become familiar with existing processes, review them thoroughly, and provide recommendations for improvements, including opportunities for automation and optimization.  In addition, exposure to configurations within the various financial applications, reporting tools and exceptions handling would be helpful. Effective communication skills, and the ability to work independently with multiple personnel/departments will be crucial.  Success will be evaluated based on the quality and accuracy of deliverables, adherence to deadlines and milestones, user satisfaction, and the ability to drive team improvements by streamlining processes and collaborating with IT to implement automation.

Primary functions and responsibilities

• Self-motivator and to develop future leaders within the team
• Assist with the testing and troubleshooting of interfaces between modules/systems including handling of exceptions and API constructs
• Design and perform training for end users on best practices of application/system usage and leveraging of technology to reduce manual work
• Provide support when working with Finance and Accounting personnel, IT personnel, Business Partners, and third-party consultant/vendors through the various project phases
• Collaborate with internal and external auditors to ensure compliance with controls related to the various SOX financial applications
• Collaborate with IT and Project Management teams to gather requirements for system enhancements or new configurations, perform testing, and coordinate deployment to production environments
• Value addition in automation and process re-engineering
• Liaising with peers in other departments for best practice developments and process improvements
• Assisting/leading in ad hoc projects and tasks as needed

Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, information systems, or related fields

Experience Required:

• 15+ years relevant experience with ERP/EPM technologies or familiarity with financial concepts and basic exposure to ERP or financial systems
• Preferred experience in any of the following applications/tools implementation and maintenance (security, workflow, configuration etc.):
  • Oracle Fusion (Must have)
  • Coupa
  • Concur
  • Trintech
  • D365 Business Central
  • OneStream
  • Workiva
• Knowledge in data analytics/modelling using tools like Azure DataLake, Power BI, Hyperion HFM/Essbase, BIP
• Knowledge in automation via Business Analyst scripting tools like Excel Macro, VBA, PowerAutomate, SQL, Python
• Familiarity/experience with API for interfacing between applications
• Strong skills in Collaboration Tools: MS Teams, Confluence, JIRA, SERA
• Strong skills in MS Office Suite: Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Visio, Project
• Providing support and training for end users
• Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment
• Networking, discovering, and researching of solutions/best practices to system/process limitations 
• Familiarity with automation tools and process improvement methodologies

General Requirements:

• Strong team management and leadership is a must
• Strong motivator to drive the team
• Attention to detail is a must
• Ability to identify and analyze problems and develop an effective course of action
• Strong/concise oral and written communication skills, experience providing support to end users
• Strong documentation skills of process, steps, methodology
• Analytical thinker and problem solver
• Familiarity with alternative manager or investment management industry a plus

Reporting Relationships

There is no set deadline to apply for this job opportunity. Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the search is no longer active.