Head of BP&AD Expense Management and Analytics

Head of BP&AD Expense Management and Analytics

Full-Time
Springfield, MA or Boston, MA

The Opportunity

The BP&AD Expense Strategic Finance Lead will work with business partners in Brand, Product & Affiliated Distribution (BP&AD) and within Corporate Finance to provide high quality information and analysis to facilitate assessment and reporting of business performance, identification of options and decision-making.  This role will be critical to managing BP&AD expenses and ensuring clear and concise forecasting and reporting frameworks. The role reports to the Head of BP&AD Strategic Finance within CFO, and will be partnering with Strategic Expense Management (SEM) and BP&AD Finance teams on a regular basis. This role will lead a total team of 5 including 2 direct reports and 3 indirect reports.

As the BP&AD Expense Strategic Finance Lead, you’ll have an opportunity to contribute to helping our businesses grow profitably. You will develop and maintain strong knowledge of our business, products, and key industry metrics.   You will utilize your understanding of the business’ challenges and priorities to help drive decision-making.  You will partner across Finance to understand the financials, leveraging data platforms to identify key information that will help to tell the story, while leveraging AI, automation and predictive analytics to increase the value and efficiency of our reporting. You will provide support to CFO customers on performance, opportunities for cost efficiencies, benchmarking comparisons, and considerations for decision-making. You will contribute to engagement for change, innovation and value creation. 

The Team

In this role, you will join our BP&AD Strategic Finance team supporting our MassMutual Life Business, Wealth business, Institutional Solutions and MMFA distribution.  The Strategic Finance team is a collaborative team whose members demonstrate accountability, agility, a dedication to be inclusive, strong business acumen, and show courage, even in the most difficult situations. Highly effective communication and influencing skills are key to successful relationship-building and the ability to articulate the reasoning and bases for recommendations and conclusions are imperative.  In addition, the ability to influence and challenge assumption in a matrixed organization will be essential.  Our team demonstrates an inquisitive approach, asking probing questions to identify issues with specificity.

The Impact

As the BP&AD Expense Strategic Finance Lead your work will impact strategic decisions made by your business partners; enabling better strategic decisions utilizing the financial data and tools.  You will accomplish that through the responsibilities listed below:

Drive and Support Strategic Expense Initiatives:

• Actively participate in driving business financial projects/initiatives.  Be a respected thought partner in the development and execution of strategies and initiatives to achieve the enterprise’s strategic aspirations and goals, including active, ongoing involvement in expense initiatives including but not limited to:
  • CBA ownership for confidential expense initiatives
  • Partner with Corp Dev on strategic assessments and decisions impacting expenses within BPAD businesses
  • Assess Benchmarking study and areas for potential cost improvement
  • Review expense accrual and accounting treatment for adherence with GAAP and Accounting Policy guidance
• Review forecast and initiative assumptions and contribute to cost-benefit analyses to support decision making, including prioritization, in order to pursue the most beneficial initiatives and maximize benefits.
• Inspire, lead and execute on CFO transformation initiatives, including data driven financial analysis, automated reporting, advanced analytics, data governance, and talent strategy.

• Provide input to Strategic Expense Management (SEM) on new/ad-hoc strategic expense analyses and identification, assessment and tracking of enterprise expense savings initiatives, including feasibility / business implications

Design, Model and Analyze:

• Prepare high quality analysis to influence key financial decisions, including developing and employing analytical models. This analysis is also used both with the business and within CFO for management reporting.
• Contribute to the development of driver-based expense forecasts, reviewing and vetting key assumption and assessing overall reasonableness of expense forecasts relative to P&L forecast. Ensure that key forecast business driver assumptions are developed in collaboration with business partners
• Co-Design Future Expense Forecast Structure, in partnership with SEM and BPAD Finance; Implement new structure seeking feedback and making refinements. 
• Provides input to determine expense guidance and cascades expense guidance to BP&AD
• Leads the development of the BP&AD expense forecasts; Reviews and discusses BP&AD forecasts to understand material underlying forecast assumptions and variance analytics. Develop materials needed to obtain ELT approval of BP&AD Forecast.
• Provide input into enterprise consolidated expense forecast 

Monitor and Communicate Business Drivers and Results

• Identify and monitor key performance drivers and risks with timely communications of trends and observations. This supports decision making and internal management reporting and external reporting.
• Lead the Co-Design of Future-state expense monthly reporting structure; Implement new monthly structure seeking feedback and making refinements. 
  • Produce standard BP&AD Monthly Report incorporating variance analysis and ensuring alignment on key messaging
  • Shapes the BP&AD expense narrative and writes commentary for BP&AD reporting
  • Provide input to/ partner with BPAD finance for additional business-specific views for business audiences
  • Produce expense reporting packages for CFO and ELT cadences; Translate BP&AD expense narrative into broader CFO/ELT report narrative and write ELT level commentary, providing input into enterprise expense narrative
  • Develop a roadmap for automation and efficiency of expense reporting, leveraging internal Data reporting teams and development of automated and AI-assisted solutions. 
• Influence, lead and educate on financial-related elements of the strategic and tactical success of the businesses

Collaborate, Communicate and Influence:

• Develop and maintain strong working relationships and collaborate with business partners and CFO co-workers to continuously improve CFO processes.
• Use business acumen and communication skills to draft and contribute to commentary which enables readers to quickly understand why and how performance impacts financial results.  Communicate complex information and analysis in clear, understandable terms with appropriate context, focused on actionable content.
• Address and drive solutions for financial-related issues and opportunities, including influencing cross-functional actions and collaboration.

The Minimum Qualifications

• Experience using data and information to analyze and communicate (in writing, orally and visually) the implications of business unit activity, leveraging business intelligence applications (Alation, Microstrategy, SQL queries etc.)
• Intellectual curiosity to continue learning and add breadth and depth to understanding.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with, challenge and influence senior business leaders and peers in using financial information and tools to identify options and make decisions across a matrixed organization
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to convey complex information in readily understandable terms  
• Exceptional relationship building and influencing skills
• Proven ability to lead across a matrixed organization
• 10+ years of experience in finance or actuarial
• Knowledge of U.S. GAAP and statutory financial reporting requirements
• Experience with financial forecasting and quarter closes
• Ability to work well under pressure and manage multiple deliverables

What You Can Expect at MassMutual 

MassMutual offers the opportunity to do meaningful work within a purpose-driven organization that values long-term impact over short-term outcomes. In this role, you can expect: 

• Clear areas of ownership and accountability, with work that connects directly to company and customer outcomes  

• A collaborative environment where perspectives are welcomed   

• Access to learning, development, and internal networks that support continuous growth and skill-building over time  

• Employee-led communities and forums that foster connection, learning, and inclusion across the organization  

• A culture grounded in integrity, responsibility, and stewardship—supported by a company with a strong legacy and a future-focused mindset 

#LI-DNI

MassMutual is an equal employment opportunity employer. We welcome all persons to apply.

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