Financial Operations Manager

The Financial Operations Manager serves as the strategic finance and operations lead for Aon’s Marketing & Communications (MarComm) and People Organization, acting as the primary liaison to Finance. Reporting to the Chief of Staff, this role leads a team responsible for financial planning, workforce investment governance, and oversight of events, project, and program expenditures.

The role combines people leadership, financial stewardship, and cross-functional partnership to drive operational excellence, align investments with business priorities, and ensure adherence to enterprise standards. The successful candidate develops talent, fosters accountability, and collaborates with senior leaders to deliver strategic initiatives and organizational objectives.

Aon is in the business of better decisions

At Aon, we shape decisions for the better to protect and enrich the lives of people around the world.

As an organization, we are united through trust as one inclusive team and we are passionate about helping our colleagues and clients succeed.

What the day will look like

People Leadership & Team Development

• Directly manage a team of two colleagues, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, inclusion, growth, and high performance.
• Establish annual team goals and individual performance objectives aligned to MarComm, People Organization, and enterprise priorities.
• Lead performance management activities, including goal setting, performance reviews, ongoing feedback, talent assessment, and recognition of colleague contributions.
• Hold regular 1:1 meetings and quarterly 4x4 development conversations to support colleague growth, engagement, career progression, and development planning.
• Provide coaching, mentorship, and stretch opportunities that build financial acumen, business partnership skills, operational discipline, and future leadership readiness.
• Monitor workload distribution, clarify priorities, remove barriers, and ensure successful delivery of key planning, reporting, governance, and operational objectives.
• Support succession planning and building capability by identifying development opportunities, strengthening team knowledge, and encouraging continuous learning.

Enterprise Integration & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Serve as a key integration point across enterprise stakeholders to ensure alignment on financial targets, strategic priorities, investments, operational activities, governance requirements, and execution plans.
• Coordinate planning, workforce investments, vendor engagements, organizational changes, and new initiatives across a broad stakeholder network.
• Drive cross-functional collaboration to support organizational effectiveness, resource optimization, financial transparency, and successful execution of strategic initiatives.
• Lead integration efforts for new programs, projects, technologies, and business processes, ensuring effective implementation, operational readiness, and clear ownership.
• Partner with business leaders and enterprise stakeholders to identify process improvements, governance enhancements, and operational efficiencies.
• Facilitate decision-making by aligning diverse stakeholder groups around common objectives, priorities, investment trade-offs, and execution timelines.
• Support enterprise-wide initiatives, organizational transformations, and operating model changes by ensuring appropriate financial, operational, and governance structures are in place.

Strategic Financial Planning & Workforce Investment Governance

• Lead the annual planning, budgeting, forecasting, and long-range planning processes for the MarComm and People Organization functions.
• Oversee governance and review of Salary, incentive and Benefits (SIB) talent investments and hire requests, ensuring alignment with business cases, organizational priorities, and approved plans.
• Partner with functional leaders to evaluate workforce needs, investment impacts, financial trade-offs, and prioritization decisions.
• Develop financial models, planning inputs, and operating reviews that support informed decision-making and resource allocation.

P&L Oversight, Variance Management & Financial Structures

• Key liaison between MarComm and the People Org with the Finance function.
• Partner with functional leaders to ensure visibility into P&L performance, including SIB and non-salary, incentive, and benefits variances (NSIB).
• Provide analysis of actuals, forecasts, risks, opportunities, and year-end outlooks to strengthen transparency and accountability.
• Own the governance and maintenance of cost-center structures, financial hierarchies, and organizational reporting frameworks.
• Ensuring financial structures align with evolving functional structures, operating models, organizational redesigns, and new initiatives.
• Oversee financial governance for projects, programs, vendor engagements, and operational expenditures, including budget management and investment prioritization.

How this opportunity is different

The ideal candidate is a strategic and collaborative people leader who combines strong coaching and talent development capabilities with financial and operational expertise in Marketing and HR costs.  They create clarity, build trust, and develop high-performing teams through regular feedback, quarterly 4x4 development conversations, thoughtful coaching, and clear expectations.

This leader excels at connecting people, processes, financial structures, and business objectives. They are comfortable navigating complex, matrixed environments, influencing senior stakeholders, and aligning diverse groups around shared priorities. They bring discipline to planning, governance, financial transparency, and operational execution while enabling successful delivery of organizational priorities and strategic investments.

Skills and experience that will lead to success

• Significant experience in financial operations, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), workforce planning, business operations, or related finance leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience managing and developing colleagues, including performance reviews, goal setting, coaching, mentoring, and development planning.
• Proven ability to partner with senior leaders in a complex, matrixed organization and translate financial insights into business actions.
• Strong understanding of annual planning, forecasting, P&L management, variance analysis, cost-center governance, and organizational financial structures.
• Experience supporting projects, programs, vendor engagements, organizational changes, and cross-functional initiatives.
• Strong executive communication, stakeholder management, influence, problem-solving, and operational execution skills.

For positions in San Francisco and Los Angeles, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction record in accordance with local Fair Chance ordinances.

Aon is not accepting unsolicited resumes from search firms for this position. If you are a search firm, you will not be compensated in any way for your submission of a candidate, even if Aon hires that candidate.

Nothing in this job description restricts management's right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities to this job at any time.

Pay Transparency Laws

The salary range for this position (intended for U.S. applicants) is $110,000 - $130,000 annually. The actual salary will vary based on applicant’s education, experience, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.  The salary may also be adjusted based on applicant’s geographic location. 

The salary range reflected is based on a primary work location of Chicago, Illinois. The actual salary may vary for applicants in a different geographic location. 

This position is eligible to participate in one of Aon’s annual incentive plans to receive an annual discretionary bonus in addition to base salary.  The amount of any bonus varies and is subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable incentive plan.

Aon offers a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and regular part-time colleagues, including, but not limited to: a 401(k) savings plan with employer contributions; an employee stock purchase plan; consideration for long-term incentive awards at Aon’s discretion; medical, dental and vision insurance, various types of leaves of absence, paid time off, including 12 paid holidays throughout the calendar year, 15 days of paid vacation per year, paid sick leave as provided under state and local paid sick leave laws, short-term disability and optional long-term disability, health savings account, health care and dependent care reimbursement accounts, employee and dependent life insurance and supplemental life and AD&D insurance; optional personal insurance policies, adoption assistance, tuition assistance, commuter benefits, and an employee assistance program that includes free counseling sessions.  Eligibility for benefits is governed by the applicable plan documents and policies.

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