Associate Director - Research Finance

About The Opportunity

Position Summary: This position is a temporary position that supports the functions of the NU-RES Finance office under the NU-Research Enterprise Services (NU-RES) by ensuring that the University maintains compliance with applicable federal regulations, sponsor requirements and university policies with a focus on fiscal compliance. NU-RES Finance supports the research and scholarly activities of Northeastern's faculty in collaboration with colleges and administrative staff by providing financial and administrative services, financial and regulatory oversight of sponsored program accounts and monitors trends and develops strategies to address the impacts.

Responsibilities

• Maintains and supervises the activities of the Research Finance Analysts.
• Assigns, oversees, reviews and measures workload for assigned staff to support post award administration of grants and contracts, from research administration hand-off through the entire award life-cycle.
• Directly supervises and coordinates the work activity of a team of Research Finance.
• Provides career development, support and performance evaluations.
• Ensures all grant accounts are in good standing.
• Participates in the interviewing, hiring and training of new Research Finance Analysts.
• Serves as liaison between sponsors and PIs for problem resolution and information gathering.
• Attends and participates in local, state and national conferences related to research administration.
• Communicates the knowledge gained at conferences and seminars to staff.
• Assists with audits including Uniform Guidance, NSF and other sponsored agency requests/audits.
• Ensures Reconciliations and Closeouts are completed within 4 months of budget end date.
• Affords assistance with AR collection over 120 days.
• Reviews journal entries, FFR’s, invoices and closeouts.
• Conducts orientation/training sessions with new principal investigators and administrators to ensure mutual understanding of grant and contract requirements, as well as institutional policies as needed.

Qualifications

• BS/BA in Accounting, Finance or related field is required.
• 6-8 years of work experience is required.
• Strong technical skills with MS Office 365 including Teams, Excel, Word, SharePoint, Outlook, as well as Adobe Acrobat and other analytical tools.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and thrive in a fast-paced operations group, lead process improvement initiatives & manage multiple priorities for cross functional initiatives.
• Excellent leadership, analytical, problem-solving skills with a high attention to detail and organization.
• Excellent written and interpersonal communication skills with the ability to interact with management and senior leadership.
• Basic understanding of General Accounting principles, standards, and regulations is required.
• Experience in B2B accounting, accounts receivable, and working with Local and Federal agencies is preferred.
• Experience in Federal portals and sponsor systems is preferred.
• Experience in Workday Finance preferred.
• Experience managing/supervising a team is preferred.