Vice President, Financial Planning Platform Lead

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

Finance Technology is building a dedicated team for the Financial Planning Platform. The Financial Planning Platform Lead owns the strategy, roadmap, prioritization, adoption, user experience, and business outcomes for the platform, which helps the organization look forward through forecasting, scenario modeling, strategic planning, performance insights, and decision support. The role works closely with Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Fund Accounting (FA), Finance leadership, investment teams and other relevant front-office stakeholders, the Corporate Strategy Group (CSG), Enterprise Technology, Enterprise Data Engineering, Reporting & BI, application teams, and delivery partners. CSG leads the broader program and project execution, while this role provides direction, platform ownership, user experience leadership, and long-term roadmap accountability. This is a hands-on platform leadership role requiring significant Anaplan experience and direct engagement with users, planning data, dynamic models, formulas, calculations, assumptions, drivers, workflows, integrations, reporting, and platform configuration. Beyond individual modeling capability, the role is expected to set the standard for dynamic planning design, guide and challenge modelers and delivery partners, and lead others toward scalable, maintainable, strategically coherent solutions. The role requires frequent engagement with senior finance and business leaders and is expected to become a trusted partner in shaping how finance users plan, forecast, evaluate scenarios, and make strategic decisions. Success requires strong judgment, curiosity, credibility, technical depth, and the ability to lead through influence across business, product, modeling, and engineering teams.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS 

Reports to: Finance Technology leadership; aligned to the Financial Planning Platform capability 

Supervises: None initially; provides leadership across internal teams and delivery partners 

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS & RESPONSIBILITIES 

Forward-looking planning, scenarios, and decision support 

• Own the platform roadmap supporting forecasting, budgeting, scenario modeling, strategic planning, workforce planning, performance management, and management decision support. 

• Partner with FP&A, Fund Accounting, Finance leadership, investment teams and other relevant front-office stakeholders to understand business drivers, assumptions, investment activity, fund performance, capital deployment, growth opportunities, risks, and potential outcomes. 

• Improve the speed, quality, and transparency of forward-looking analysis and help users compare scenarios and understand the impact of changing assumptions. 

• Translate complex financial and operational questions into intuitive platform solutions, analytics, workflows, and decision-support experiences. 

Strategy, roadmap, and outcomes 

• Own the platform vision, strategy, roadmap, investment priorities, and backlog. 

• Lead discovery and translate user and business needs into clear problems, intended outcomes, requirements, acceptance criteria, and prioritized work. 

• Make practical trade-offs across value, user impact, complexity, risk, dependencies, timing, and delivery capacity. 

• Operate effectively in ambiguous environments by defining problems, establishing priorities, and creating structure where formal processes may not yet exist. 

• Define success measures and use adoption, user feedback, business value, platform health, and delivery outcomes to guide decisions. 

• Create and present clear presentation materials covering product strategy, roadmaps, investment priorities, business cases, delivery progress, adoption, and outcomes. 

• Influence strategic priorities and investment decisions through data-driven recommendations, business cases, roadmap proposals, and executive communication. 

Hands-on platform and data leadership 

• Develop working knowledge of platform data, models, formulas, calculations, assumptions, dimensions, hierarchies, workflows, integrations, reporting structures, and dependencies. 

• Work directly with users, data, models, configuration, calculations, and reporting outputs to understand issues and identify improvements. 

• Investigate platform, data, workflow, and reporting issues directly rather than relying exclusively on support teams or partners. 

• Participate actively in solution design, model reviews, testing, release validation, and platform evaluations. 

• Lead and guide planning modelers and delivery teams in applying dynamic modeling best practices and translating business needs into scalable, flexible planning solutions. Provide strategic design direction, challenge approaches where appropriate, and ensure modeling decisions support the long-term vision for the Financial Planning Platform. 

AI-enabled workflows and user experience 

• Identify opportunities to improve projections, scenario analysis, planning workflows, user experience, productivity, insights, and decision-making through AI-enabled capabilities. 

• Partner with Enterprise Technology, enterprise AI teams, and relevant data teams to evaluate, prioritize, and deliver practical AI-driven solutions. 

• Help move successful prototypes into governed, reusable, secure, and supportable platform solutions. 

• Apply user research, journey and workflow analysis, prototyping, feedback, and adoption practices to create simpler, more intuitive experiences. 

• Drive adoption by helping users embrace new processes, technologies, workflows, and AI-enabled ways of working. 

Relationships, trust, and senior leadership engagement 

• Serve as the primary product partner within Finance Technology for FP&A, Fund Accounting, Finance leadership, investment teams and other relevant front-office stakeholders. 

• Build trusted, durable relationships by listening closely, understanding user challenges, communicating transparently, and delivering reliably. 

• Act as a credible thought partner rather than a requirements collector, helping stakeholders frame problems, evaluate options, and make decisions. 

• Influence cross-functional teams without direct authority and align stakeholders with competing priorities. 

• Communicate direction, priorities, progress, risks, dependencies, and decisions clearly to users and senior leadership. 

Data, reporting, and delivery partnership 

• Work hand in hand with the Corporate Strategy Group (CSG), which leads the broader program and project execution, to align scope, priorities, governance, milestones, risks, communications, adoption, and benefits realization. 

• Provide product direction, platform expertise, user experience leadership, and long-term roadmap ownership within CSG-led transformation initiatives. 

• Partner with Enterprise Technology, Enterprise Data Engineering, Data Governance, Reporting & BI, application, AI, and delivery teams to define needs and scalable solutions while maintaining Finance Technology ownership of platform outcomes and user experience. 

• Help establish clear ways of working with planning modelers and engineers, including defined handoffs across product direction, model design, engineering, testing, release readiness, support, and continuous improvement. 

• Promote governed data sources, consistent definitions, appropriate controls, lineage, and clear ownership. 

• Ensure releases meet business requirements, acceptance criteria, control expectations, and operational readiness standards. 

QUALIFICATIONS 

Education 

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline. Equivalent relevant experience will be considered. 

Experience Required 

8+ years in product or technology leadership, product management, Finance Technology, enterprise applications, financial systems, data products, or a related role in a controlled enterprise environment. 

Must-have capabilities 

• Exceptional product leadership across discovery, user experience, roadmap development, prioritization, backlog management, adoption, and outcome measurement. 

• Experience owning an enterprise product or platform from strategy through delivery, adoption, support, and continuous improvement. 

• Required Anaplan expertise with the ability to guide modelers, lead solution and design discussions, establish dynamic modeling best practices, and connect near-term solutions to the long-term Financial Planning Platform strategy. 

• Demonstrated ability to design, evaluate, and lead forecasting, budgeting, scenario, and driver-based planning models, including assumptions, calculations, business drivers, dimensional structures, and dynamic modeling approaches. 

• Exceptional relationship-building skills and the ability to establish trust with users, Finance leaders, technology teams, front-office stakeholders, and senior executives. 

• Strong executive communication, storytelling, and presentation skills. 

• Ability and willingness to work hands-on with data, formulas, calculations, assumptions, models, workflows, reporting, integrations, and platform configuration concepts. 

• Strong analytical problem-solving, user experience, process design, and change adoption skills. 

Strongly preferred 

• Working knowledge of SQL for analysis, validation, troubleshooting, and root-cause investigation. 

• Python or similar scripting and automation experience. 

• Experience with Databricks, Azure Data Lake, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, or similar modern data and analytics platforms. 

• Prior experience defining, delivering, or scaling AI-driven solutions and AI-enabled user workflows. 

• Significant Anaplan experience is required, with demonstrated ability to guide modelers, lead solution and design discussions, establish dynamic modeling best practices, and shape scalable planning solutions. Experience with OneStream or similar financial planning and performance-management platforms is also valuable. 

• Experience with forecasting, scenario modeling, strategic planning, performance management, or decision-support products is valuable. 

• Experience partnering with corporate strategy, transformation, program management, or internal consulting teams on large, cross-functional initiatives. 

• Ability to operate as both a product and platform leader, setting direction for planning solutions, guiding modelers and delivery teams, and ensuring designs remain aligned with business priorities and the long-term platform strategy. 

• Asset management, alternative investments, financial services, or enterprise Finance Technology experience. 

How success will be measured 

• FP&A, FA, Finance leadership, and relevant front-office users have stronger capabilities for projections, forecasting, scenarios, and forward-looking decisions. 

• A clear roadmap and well-managed backlog are tied to measurable business outcomes. 

• The platform becomes more scalable, reliable, integrated, intuitive, and easier to use. 

• AI-enabled workflows deliver practical value and improve the user experience. 

• Users trust the platform direction and view the team as a strong partner. 

• Senior leadership has clear visibility into strategy, priorities, progress, and outcomes. 

Reporting Relationships

Compensation

The anticipated base salary range for this position is listed below. Total compensation may also include a discretionary performance-based bonus. Note, the range takes into account a broad spectrum of qualifications, including, but not limited to, years of relevant work experience, education, and other relevant qualifications specific to the role.

$200,000 - $225,000

The firm also offers robust Benefits offerings. Ares U.S. Core Benefits include Comprehensive Medical/Rx, Dental and Vision plans; 401(k) program with company match; Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA); Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSA) with company contribution; Basic and Voluntary Life Insurance; Long-Term Disability (LTD) and Short-Term Disability (STD) insurance; Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and Commuter Benefits plan for parking and transit.

Ares offers a number of additional benefits including access to a world-class medical advisory team, a mental health app that includes coaching, therapy and psychiatry, a mindfulness and wellbeing app, financial wellness benefit that includes access to a financial advisor, new parent leave, reproductive and adoption assistance, emergency backup care, matching gift program, education sponsorship program, and much more.

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.