Finance Experts – Budgeting and Controlling

You will be part of the Budgeting and Controlling Division in the Directorate Finance. Our Directorate has around 100 staff performing accounting, budgeting, controlling, financial reporting and procurement activities. We are currently working on our digitalisation roadmap, promoting efficiency and embracing innovation in the field of finance.

The Budgeting and Controlling Division has around 40 members of staff organised into five teams. Our work includes facilitating the planning, monitoring and controlling of resources for all ECB business areas. We specialise in providing decision-making analysis, offering comprehensive support and advice to executive leadership, business area management and other stakeholders. We also provide secretariat services to three committees and oversee the supervisory fee framework. Furthermore, our Division plays a pivotal role in implementing systems innovation within the Directorate Finance and provides functional support for the ECB’s procure-to-pay process.

We are currently looking for finance experts to join our team. The role will focus on budget partnering, budgeting and controlling of operating expenses, projects including forecasting and projections, and the calculation of supervisory fees, with a particular emphasis on preparation of resources-related advice and reporting to high-level stakeholders.

Finance Experts – Budgeting and Controlling

Your role

As a Finance Expert, you will:

• act as a first point of contact for assigned business areas in all budgeting, controlling and resource management matters, establishing regular contact and continuous dialogue with key stakeholders representing financial controlling;
• develop a high-level understanding of the strategy and the operational activities of the assigned areas in order to identify and estimate the budgetary impact of their regular business and project proposals and to prepare clear and concise summaries and advice for decision-makers;
• provide management information, ad hoc analysis and reporting to internal stakeholders and to both ECB and Eurosystem committees on financial and human resources management;
• prepare, coordinate and/or contribute to main budget-related ECB reports and proposals for key stakeholders;
• identify and prepare proposals for process and policy improvements and innovations to enhance operational efficiency and effectiveness in the context of the Division’s goals and the Directorate’s digitalisation roadmap.

For this role we are seeking experienced candidates who demonstrate the potential for growth, and we will support the selected candidates in their development of the required skills. We value a track record of diverse relevant experience gained through internal or external mobility and/or positions held prior to working at the ECB.

The position offers you excellent opportunities to work on a broad range of budgeting and controlling topics, to interact with different stakeholders and to actively share your knowledge within a team to further strengthen its performance. You will be part of a multicultural team that strives for continuous innovation to make a positive impact on the lives of European citizens.

Qualifications, experience and skills

Essential:

• a master’s degree or equivalent in finance, accounting, business administration, economics, mathematics, computer science or another relevant field;
• in addition to the above, at least four years of professional experience in budgeting and controlling, or financial and/or financial performance analysis, gained in the financial services sector;
• proven professional experience in complex financial data and business case analysis, project controlling, producing multi-annual projections including preparing advice and clear insights for high-level stakeholders, related to resource management, cost recovery and cost-benefit analyses for decision-making;
• demonstrated ability to engage with senior stakeholders and provide sound financial advice to decision-makers, supported by various tools, such as dashboards, reports and presentations;
• proven ability to take ownership of and accountability for end-to-end preparation and continuous improvement of budget-related dossiers, including ad hoc complex analysis and concise executive presentations;
• experience in using and digitalising financial processes in SAP or similar enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or other project and resource management systems and advanced analytical tools (such as SAP Analytics Cloud, Tableau, Power BI, Excel or Mendix) to prepare reports, dashboards and financial analyses;
• an advanced (C1) command of English and an intermediate (B1) command of at least one other official language of the EU.

Desired:

• extensive experience with budget and headcount planning or controlling in an international financial institution, national supervisor or central bank;
• business knowledge gained through professional experience and/or close collaboration related to the ECB’s pillars (central banking, shared services and banking supervision);
• an understanding of supervisory fee-related policies and practices and/or public procurement and purchasing processes;
• experience in strategic and operational planning, including planning and controlling of Eurosystem projects;
• experience in staff cost budgeting and control, including planning and projecting of salaries, variance analysis and impact analysis of policy measures, as well as human resources planning, including headcount planning and monitoring.

You engage collaboratively with others. You pursue team goals and learn willingly from other people’s diverse perspectives. You signal any need for change by explaining it and proposing alternative solutions. You analyse complex information effectively and can evaluate different views to arrive at solutions. You know and anticipate stakeholder needs.

You are motivated to be part of our team and to develop and use your skills and competencies to achieve the aims of this position. You are aware of your strengths and areas for development and know what motivates you to perform at your highest level.

Working modalities

We would be happy to discuss a part-time arrangement for this role.

Further information

The contracts offered will be fixed-term, the appointment being for 18 months as of the exact starting date of the selected person.

Temporary appointments may be extended or made permanent subject to organisational needs and budgetary constraints. This may result in a staff member with a non-convertible fixed-term contract being offered a convertible contract in accordance with the ECB Conditions of Employment.