Director, Financial Planning and Analysis

Job Description

Director, Financial Planning and Analysis

Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is seeking a Director to support Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) for our rapidly growing Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) businesses. The position is located in Culver City, CA.

Reporting into Senior Vice President of Finance, this role is accountable for all aspects of FP&A and home office finance responsibilities related to the current Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) business suite and any future acquisitions for further DTC expansion. The current businesses include Crunchyroll (market leader in anime distribution with fast-scaling streaming platform of premium free ad-supported and subscription anime content network serving across 200+ countries with events, theatrical, games, consumer products, collectibles and manga publishing) and Pure Flix (premium subscription-based digital streaming network in faith and family-friendly TV series and films).

The DTC Finance group works closely with local finance and management teams to translate the incredible amount of data into financial decisions, ensuring the needs of both Business Unit Leaders & SPE are met. Focusing on strategy & analysis in order to evaluate business performance and partnering closely with SPE senior management who depend heavily on the strategic financial insights in order to make critical business decisions across the company.

The ideal candidate in the DTC finance group will have the following core responsibilities related to businesses with over $1.3 billion in revenue:

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, analyzing and reviewing operations' financial information for actual performance, budget, forecast, mid-range plans, management KPI reporting and coordination with operations & local finance teams as well as special projects, ad hoc and management analysis & reporting for existing and new business ventures.
• Home office owner of all FPA related consolidation (from local group submission) that include coordination, review, and analysis of actual, planning, investment / commitment approvals, ad hoc and KPI management reporting, utilizing a critical-thinking lens as well as managing the variance explanations with a root-cause analysis
• Collaborate with heads of local finance & operation in order to understand and help define financial targets and goals, further supporting the businesses and SPE's needs
• Facilitate or create where appropriate timely and dynamic reports to support management in executing financial goals
• Provide SPE management with analysis of financial results shortly after monthly, quarterly and year end close, including an analysis of budget/forecast to actual results, trend analysis or other important insights
• Regularly update SPE senior management with the status of all relevant pending financial matters
• Perform and manage insightful analyses, reports, and presentations on relevant operating and financial metrics in an easy-to-understand format to senior executives to influence decision-making
• Collaborate, build, and maintain strong relationships with various groups internal / external groups such as Data BI, Corporate Development, Integration Management team, Technical Accounting, Finance Transformation, Global Tax Office, Global Financial Operations, etc
• Efficiently work with cross-functional teams to identify financial value drivers & maintain the highest level of data quality
• Review long-term company financial metric model, sensitivity analysis & scenario cases for strategic planning such as Lifetime Value (LTV) cohort model, Retention, Customer Acquisition Cost, Content Viewership, etc
• Design, develop, implement, and improve processes related to budgeting, forecasting, actual financial reporting, and analysis in high growth business
• Assess and evaluate financial performance with regard to operational strategic goals, identification of opportunities and mitigate risks and collaborate with senior management to set KPIs
• Review / conduct analysis of key business/financial drivers, performance indicators, internal development efforts, industry trends, competitive landscape, and other defined assumptions to provide value-added inputs to help decision making in executing strategy
• Review asset valuation and impairment analysis with accounting & drive the original production greenlight process with close coordination with all teams
• Supervise direct / indirect reports and prioritize deliverables
• Support in M&A activities from finance side (i.e., due diligence, business plan evaluations and related analysis)

Qualifications:
• 8+ years Corporate FP&A in media entertainment and / or management consulting / banking experience including 2+ years of managerial experience
• Prior experience in online streaming / digital space is preferred
• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, Economics, or other relevant field that demonstrated quantitative orientation
• MBA is preferred but not required
• Expert in financial modeling and analysis, including annual budgeting and long-term strategic planning as Corporate FP&A
• High proficiency in MS Excel and PowerPoint with data analytics & ability to translate information / data into insight-driven story telling management report / presentation
• Ability to analyze and work with high volume of data from multiple sources
• Experience in automating tasks or processes, as well as identifying and organizing data to achieve a better outcome for analyses.

Skills:
• Thrive in a fast-paced environment, possess a high level of intellectual curiosity, focus on generating results and exhibit the highest personal and professional standards of integrity and ethics
• Strong sense of urgency when needed and efficiency in time-management
• Self-motivated and a ''get it done'' attitude and approach
• Team player, upbeat, and focused, with a strong passion to learn and succeed
• A strong comfort level with analyzing large datasets and drawing meaningful conclusions/results that add value to the business
• Keep an open mind for process improvement and embracing changes
• Think outside the box & challenge status quo when required by highlighting new trends, improving existing processes or are open to sourcing those ideas from others
• Ability to work with all departments of company - multi-cultural workforce
• Critical thinking & demonstrated experience in problem solving, making decisions influenced by data and business insights utilizing financial modeling
• Great judgement and decisiveness when dealing with deadline-driven, finance-related issues and concerns
• Excellent relationship management abilities/strong interpersonal communication skills
• Excellent organization skills, acute attention to detail, ability to handle multiple tasks in a fast-paced and time sensitive environment
• Strong follow-through on all projects; ability to bring projects to timely completion with proven track record of meeting deadlines, and taking initiative to make confident and well-informed decisions

* Sony Pictures - CA - Culver City Area & Studios

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-rb5b8o-18-221-129-19-42 in your application.