Senior Finance Business Partner (Alternatives)

Senior Finance Business Partner (Alternatives) at Alpha FMC

• Division: Business Operations
• Function: Finance
• Location: New York (co-located with Alternatives Head of North America)

About Alpha FMC 

Alpha Financial Markets Consulting (Alpha) is a leading global consultancy to the financial services industry. Founded in 2003, we have worked for over 20 years to bring together specialist, sector-focused strategy, management consulting and technology expertise to support the entire client transformation lifecycle. Having partnered with more than 1,200 clients worldwide across the asset and wealth management, alternatives and insurance industries, Alpha is truly a trusted advisor for complex change programmes. We now have over 1,180 consultants working with clients across North America, the UK, Europe, Middle East and APAC. In 2024, in recognition of our successful track record and strong growth prospects, Alpha was acquired by Bridgepoint, one of the world's leading quoted private asset growth investors. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. We are delighted that many of our team have built long and fulfilling careers with us, many staying over a decade. We believe this is because Alpha offers a genuinely rewarding place to work: a meritocratic environment where your career can flourish, and a welcoming culture where you can be yourself, connect with others and thrive. As we look to the future, we’re excited to be looking for new Alpha colleagues - individuals who are collaborative, innovative and ambitious. We hope you will join us and help shape the next chapter of our growth journey.

Why join Alpha?

1. Established yet entrepreneurial – with over 20 years of success and a proven record on the London Stock Exchange, Alpha offers the stability of an established consultancy with the energy of a fast-growth business.
2. Backed by Bridgepoint – as part of one of the world’s leading growth investors, Alpha benefits from strategic investment that fuels innovation, expansion and new offerings – creating even more opportunity for our people.
3. Exposure to senior leadership – whether you are in an internal or a client facing role, you will have the opportunity to work with and learn from the best of the best – high performers at the top of their game.
4. Learning and growth opportunities – we run tailored training to help you be successful, provide you excellent mentorship, and offer up to 5 days paid training time per year. Perhaps the best training though is the experience on the job – as everyone at Alpha has high responsibility and autonomy, you can develop your skillsets quickly.
5. Performance-driven culture with real impact – advancement at Alpha is based on impact and capability, not tenure or quotas. You’ll have autonomy and see the tangible difference your ideas and decisions make.

Overview of Business Operations

While consultants focus on delivery client value, our 'Business Operations' function ensures that the company runs efficiently and appropriately across a number of operational areas: Finance, People, Operations, IT, and Legal, Risk & Compliance. Together, these teams ensure the consultants are fully supported - working from a strong operational base that’s efficient, innovative and compliant. Business Operations doesn’t just enable delivery; it empowers Alpha’s long-term success.

Role & Requirements

We are investing into a Senior Finance Business Partner aligned to our Alternatives division.

The Senior Finance Business Partner (Alternatives) role is a strategic dual role, embedded into both the business unit (Alternatives) and the Business Operations function (Finance function) to ensure alignment with Alternatives division’s strategic goals, while also maintaining strong ties with Business Operations to uphold functional standards and best practices.

The Senior Finance Business Partner (Alternatives) has dual reporting lines:

• To the Business Head – reporting to the Global Head of Alternatives who provides day-to-day direction, priorities, and operational objectives.
• To the Business Operations – the Senior Finance Business Partner (Alternatives) role reports directly into the CFO, who ensure functional alignment, capability development, and mentoring support.

This structure enables the Senior Finance Business Partner (Alternatives) to deliver tailored finance solutions that are both strategically aligned with Alternatives and consistent with Group-wide Finance practices.

Your key responsibilities include:

• Strategic Financial Leadership:
  • Provide expert financial advice and guidance to senior leadership and business heads to support strategic business planning and decision-making.
  • Act as trusted advisor to Business Unit (BU) leadership on all financial matters.
  • Drive discussions on resource allocation, investments, and returns.
• Business Unit Finance Strategy:
  • Identify potential financial risks and opportunities, contributing to the development of strategies that drive efficiency, improve financial performance, and reduce risk.
  • Align BU financial plans with overall firm strategy and growth ambitions.
  • Translate commercial goals into actionable financial objectives.
  • Advise BU leadership on profitability cost optimization and investment priorities.
• Strategic Project Support:
  • Lead finance modelling and scenario analysis for BU initiatives.
  • Support evaluation of new client opportunities and pricing strategies.
  • Monitor project financials to safeguard profitability and cash flow.
• Finance Delivery Team Mobilization and Monitoring:
  • Ensure smooth delivery of transaction services (AP, AR, payroll).
  • Monitor service performance and escalate where required.
  • Provide feedback to improve efficiency and accuracy of Finance delivery team.
• Financial Planning and Analysis:
  • Oversee the development and management of the budgeting process in alignment with corporate timelines.
  • Develop rolling forecasts incorporating demand, pipeline and costs.
  • Support leaders in making proactive course corrections.
  • Track key performance indicators (KPIs) to drive value creation across revenue/profit/cashflow, analyze deviations from targets, and produce insightful financial reports for senior management.
  • Analyze revenue, utilization and margin performance drivers.
  • Provide actionable insights on trends, risks and opportunities.
  • Benchmark BU performance against peers and market norms.
• Business Insight and Advisory:
  • Act as a trusted advisor, translating complex financial data into actionable insights to help non-finance stakeholders understand business performance and make data-driven decisions.
  • Analyze client/ project profitability and pricing structures.
  • Provide insights to improve margin management and contract terms.
  • Support leadership in commercial negotiations.
• Cost Management and Optimization:
  • Identify cost-saving and efficiency opportunities across BU operations.
  • Partner with leaders to track discretionary spend.
  • Benchmark BU cost base against internal and external best practice.
• Investment Business Cases:
  • Collaborate with BU leaders to build and evaluate investment cases.
  • Ensure alignment with financial return thresholds.
  • Track outcomes against expected budgets.
• Mentoring & Oversight:
  • Oversight and mentoring of a Finance Business Partner (Alternatives) based in London

Qualifications:

Education:

• University degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• Professional finance qualification (e.g. ACA, ACCA, CIMA) preferred.
• Minimum of 7 years of experience in a Finance role, with at least 2 years in business partnering capacity.

Skills and competencies:

• Strong analytical and data interpretation skills to build financial models, analyze complex data sets, and identify key financial drivers.
• Excellent leadership and communication skills to effectively convey financial insights to non-financial stakeholders.
• Proven ability to build and maintain relationships across different levels of the organization.
• Ability to think long-term, contribute to the development of new strategies, and identify opportunities for business growth and financial improvement.
• A proactive, collaborative, positive approach to helping the organization succeed.

Good to have:

• Experience within a professional services firm (ideally within management consulting)
• Experience or interest in the financial services industry
• Experience of our systems (e.g., Salesforce, Sage) and data visualization tools (Pigment/PowerBI).

Location and working patten:

• Office-based in New York. For this role it is important that this individual is co-located with the business and is able to attend key meetings in person – e.g. senior leadership meetings, strategic initiative workshops and 1:1s. We expect that on average this will require c. 2-3d/w in the relevant office, but this may flex up or down depending on the week.

Benefits & Compensation

• Competitive salary with annual profit-sharing opportunity 

• 401k/RRSP matching 

• 25 days of annual paid time off 

• Supplemented medical, dental and vision coverage 

• Laptop and mobile phone 

There are a wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to - skill sets, experience and training, and licensure and certifications. A reasonable estimate of the range is $190,000 to $235,000 subject to change based on salary benchmarking. In addition to the base salary, employees would be eligible for both variable and non-variable benefits. 

Our Commitment to Inclusion
At Alpha, diversity, equity and inclusion are critical to our success. Our priorities show a focus on fostering an inclusive, equitable workplace where individuals are treated fairly regardless of gender or background. We welcome applications from disabled people and are committed to making our recruitment process and workplace accessible and inclusive for everyone.

Data Privacy Policy: Full details around what data we hold, why we hold it and for how long are available in our recruitment privacy statement (https://alphafmc.com/privacy-policy/).