Consultant, Higher Education

How you’ll make an impact

As a Software Implementation Consultant, you lead projects and work in partnership with our higher education customers to implement our exciting portfolio of performance management solutions, including Budgeting, Forecasting, Strategic Financial Planning, Tuition Revenue Planning, Commitments, Allocations and more. You will manage the day-to-day activities with customers across the distinct phases of the implementation process, including system design, configuration, training, and deployment. You will be part of a highly collaborative team of consultants with a wealth of higher education finance experience, working to translate business needs into demonstrable capabilities in the application and modify our products to align with specific customer requirements.

In this role, you will:

Lead multidimensional software implementation projects and develop valuable customer relationships

Collaborate with customers at all levels (executive to end-user) to understand their business objectives and configure optimal software systems to fulfill these goals

Train customer finance leadership teams on our software and our recommended best practices

Train customer system administrators to maintain systems post-deployment and enhance end-user adoption

Provide advisory services to help customers optimize their use of our software products

Use your industry knowledge, experience and technical skills to design and build tools tailored to customer requirements

What we’re looking for

Advanced knowledge and use of Microsoft Excel

3-5 years of relevant experience in a finance role (e.g., Financial Analyst/Budget Analyst, Senior Financial Analyst/Senior Budget Analyst, Assistant Budget Director, College Operations Manager, etc.), preferably involved in the higher education budgeting process. Your experience may include the following, or similar, activities:

Engagement in annual process and workflows for operational budgeting, labor planning, and/or capital budgeting

Involvement in tuition or fee revenue planning, pre/post-award grants administration

Development of complex analyses such as program profitability, forecasting or similar, bringing together data from various sources

Monitoring budget to actuals activity and/or communicating financial positions to stakeholders who are not finance professionals

Experience with data input or outputs to your institution’s ERP system

Excellent attention to detail and organizational skills

Excellent communication and people skills

Ability to work on multiple tasks simultaneously and meet deadlines while providing quality results

Highly organized and analytical, with the ability to adapt and think creatively to solve problems

High energy, entrepreneurial mindset, and enthusiasm for being part of a growing vertical

A continuous improvement mindset and willingness to contribute ideas and share insights

Willingness to travel within the U.S. to customer locations up to 10–25% as needed

You can wow us with

Additional years of experience in higher education finance and/or budgeting

Experience working within academic medical centers or schools of medicine

Familiarity building relational databases, or using an existing relational database to create reports or other analytic tools

Experience leading or working within a software implementation committee as a customer

Software implementation consulting experience

Experience in creating financial models, such as revenue projections, new program profitability forecasts or similar

Estimated Salary Range: $80,000-108,000

Actual salary will be determined based on factors including, but not limited to, skill set and level of experience. This salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Strata also provides discretionary variable pay programs based on role. In addition, Strata provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits, health and welfare benefits, paid time off, parental leave, life and accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits.

Find out more about Strata benefits here .

How we work:

Our preferred location for open roles is Chicago, IL. We value in‑person connection and regularly host on‑campus events to create meaningful opportunities for our team to build relationships and collaborate

Thinking about applying?

Research shows that women and underrepresented groups tend to apply to jobs only when they check every box on a job posting. If you’re currently reading this and hesitating to click “Apply” for that reason, we encourage you to go for it! A true passion and excitement for making an impact is just as important as work experience.

Should you require a reasonable accommodation in completing this application, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please reach out to careers@stratadecision.com.

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