Careers

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building:
• Salary Range: $250,000-$285,000

Position Summary

The Associate Vice President (AVP) reports to the Vice President for Administration and Finance and serves as the senior business officer overseeing day-to-day administrative functions of the Arts and Sciences.  The Arts and Sciences is home to more than 1,000 faculty, 60 research centers and institutes, and 28 academic departments. 

The AVP is a senior member of the Arts and Sciences leadership team, provides expertise and experience-based guidance on finance and administrative planning, and serves as an independent, collaborative leader.  They are responsible for creating the overall strategy for finance and human resources units, ensuring tight integration and productive collaboration between the Arts and Sciences and various internal and external partners. 

Responsibilities

Finance

• Work closely with the Vice President to support the strategic and operational needs of the Arts and Sciences and other senior staff and business officers and serve as liaisons to our university administrative partners.  Motivate and encourage teams to achieve performance and operational goals. 
• Develop and implement business service models for providing finance and administration across the Arts and Sciences, in order to support various business services needs. 
• Provide leadership of financial operations in the management and coordination of financial policies and procedures to ensure compliance in the many departments, centers, and institutes within the Arts and Sciences. Oversee all financial transactions and ensure compliance with university policies and procedures. 
• Oversee budgetary policies and practices and define levels of financial authority and responsibility that will improve operational efficiency and effectiveness and create an environment necessary to implement best practices.   
• Guide budget operations across the Arts and Sciences to prepare annual budgets, incorporating planning initiatives, personnel information, and other important factors.  Conduct costs and feasibility analyses, identify resources and develop plans for supporting new initiatives. Develop and approve budgets, monitor and oversee actuals, forecasting, and variance analyses. 
• Supervise the preparation of budget materials for the university budget and fiscal planning process.  Create guidance and provide direction for the annual year-end audit.
• Design and implement budget processes across the Arts and Sciences and share information with colleagues to help with long-term budget planning.  Produce, analyze, and distribute financial analyses on various topics, and prepare ad hoc budgets and forecasts for various activities.  Support implementation of strategic planning initiatives through proper resource allocation. 
• Help collect, evaluate, and present financial information and or materials across the various schools, centers, and departments, and provide accurate and timely responses as requested by university administrative offices. 
• Maintain strong working relationships with the various Arts and Sciences budget and financial managers to understand financial planning and operational needs and priorities.  Lead efforts to provide senior leaders and academic chairs access to budget data and analytics, as well as training, to enable budgeting decisions and effective planning processes. 
• Work closely with the senior management team on capital planning to develop, analyze, present, and contribute to determining priorities and to recommend the best use of operating, capital, cash, and endowment resources.
• Develop, analyze, present, and contribute to determining priorities for use of endowment resources.  Track endowment growth and spending, and conduct analyses on future outlooks. Oversee budgeting of endowed funds. 
• Together with other senior leaders in the Arts and Sciences, support grants management activity, including financial forecasting and management, personnel, and compliance with sponsor and institutional regulations and policies for pre-award and post-award activity that is funded from non-sponsored, gift, and institutional sources. 
• Represent the Arts and Sciences as requested in meetings or on committees or task forces.  Participate in special, long-range planning projects.  Prepare materials for executive-level meetings and presentations. 

Human Resources

• Set and direct the talent management strategy across all divisions.  Provides direction to the Director of HR to execute and advance Arts and Sciences??? people-related goals and objectives.
• Proactively address improvement opportunities needed to achieve Arts & Sciences??? mission, vision, and people strategy.
• Ensure the full scope of human resources services and support is operationalized and compliant with policies and practices within the Arts and Sciences and the University.   
• Serve as the senior decision maker with University offices regarding HR-related issues and represent the Arts and Sciences for any investigations, terminations, hiring, grievance hearings, and collective bargaining committees.
• Review and approve all changes/revisions/additions to organizational structures, HR policies, and processes that support operations across the Arts and Sciences. 
• Oversee the development and maintenance of a personnel database allowing for ad hoc personnel reporting for senior leadership.
• Foster opportunities for staff development and administrative team building at the intersection of finance and human resources.  Provide leadership and direction to staff. 

Minimum Qualifications

• Master???s degree in business administration, accounting, or related field.
• A minimum of 10 years of related experience   

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in higher education or a non-profit environment is strongly preferred.

Other Requirements

• A minimum of ten years of financial planning, budget management, or accounting-related experience, preferably in a higher education or non-profit environment. 
• An understanding of the academic mission and budget/resource planning in complex institutions of higher education is strongly desirable. 
• Demonstrated knowledge of financial planning and modeling that link resource allocation to performance and strategic planning.
• Experience overseeing a Human Resources function in a complex organization.
• Strong technical, administrative, financial, and supervisory experience. 
• Strong, strategic orientation with the ability to serve as a strategic partner and advisor to the VP of Administration and Finance as well as collaborate closely with other leaders on the senior administrative team and other parts of Columbia University.
• Unquestionable personal and business integrity.  Maintaining high levels of discretion and judgment in working with highly confidential information is necessary. 

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.

About Columbia University

Columbia University is one of the world's most important centers of research and at the same time a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields. The University recognizes the importance of its location in New York City and seeks to link its research and teaching to the vast resources of a great metropolis. It seeks to attract a diverse and international faculty and student body, to support research and teaching on global issues, and to create academic relationships with many countries and regions. It expects all areas of the university to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.

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