Manager - Accounting Applications & Technology Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.
Pasadena, CA

Job Description

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an S&P 500® company, is an urban office REIT uniquely focused on collaborative life science and technology campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations. Founded in 1994, Alexandria pioneered this niche and has since established a significant market presence in key locations, including Greater Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Alexandria is known for its high-quality and diverse tenant base. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A properties clustered in urban life science and technology campuses that provide its innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity, and success. For more information, please visit www.are.com.

The Company is an equal opportunity employer. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, sex (including sexual or gender identity), religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, age, marital or veteran status, genetic information, physical or mental disability, or medical condition.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Implementation of Accounting Technology Projects:

* Lead the process to increase utilization of technology to improve the Accounting team's effectiveness and efficiency by defining, delivering and supporting strategic plans for implementing information technologies and process improvements.
* Serve as the key visionary from the Accounting team to identify pain points and inefficiencies that can be solved by technology solutions, and then serve as liaison to the Business Application (IT) team, to establish parameters for the identification of suitable technology solutions.
* Work with Business Applications (IT) team on the assessment of technology solution tools (pros and cons) and provide recommendations for Accounting Management review and approval.
* Solid understanding in both Accounting systems (from a capabilities perspective) and Accounting processes (from a business perspective) to effectively address pain points and to carry out improvement projects with minimal guidance
* Partner with the Business Applications team to manage all aspects of Accounting technology projects including, but not limited to:
* Act as a liaison between Accounting team and Information Technology team
* Manage the scope and timeline of all Accounting related technology projects
* Prepare comprehensive documentation to summarize business requirements gathered through sessions with Accounting and IT personnel
* Formulate and define process improvement objectives; devise and modify procedures to solve identified problems
* Anticipate/identify issues that inhibit attainment of project goals and implement corrective actions
* Lead the accounting team's share of the quality assurance process, coordinate user acceptance testing activities with business users, and procure related sign-offs and approvals from business users.
* Monitor and report to management on a regular basis on the status of current projects



Day-to-Day Maintenance of Existing Accounting Systems:

* Provide business analysis and Accounting systems knowledge support to the Accounting and IT teams, including JD Edwards, Nexus, Insight, and Essbase
* Act as Subject Matter Expert (SME) for how various Accounting systems and applications interact with other Alexandria's systems and applications
* Utilize knowledge of applications and accounting processes to identify process improvement opportunities and recommend solutions.
* Foster and maintain good relationships with functional and process SMEs, and IT colleagues to meet expected customer service levels
* Participate in the support of current application(s), including training, issues resolution, user administration, enhancements, and upgrades

Qualifications and Experience:

* Bachelor's in accounting/business required, CPA is desirable
* 5 - 10 years of work experience with minimum one year as a supervisor or manager
* Experience and strong knowledge of accounting and finance business processes required
* Real estate industry/accounting knowledge highly desirable
* Excellent verbal and written communication skills
* Excellent project management and leadership skills
* Experience with process mapping and process engineering
* Knowledge of design, testing and documentation
* Strong analytical, problem solving and conceptual skills
* Intermediate to advance level skills with MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, VBA

Competencies:

* Quickly understands the business issues and data challenges of client's organization
* Documents, reviews and edits requirements, specifications, business processes and recommendations related to proposed solutions
* Leads coordination of testing efforts
* Ensures issues are identified, tracked, reported on and resolved in a timely manner.
* Works with Accounting personnel to identify required changes
* Project management skills
* Assists in enforcement of project deadlines and schedules
* Manages Accounting resources in accordance with project schedule
* Consistently delivers high-quality services to our internal stakeholders

Highly Desirable Experience:

* Real Estate ERP systems (JDE, MRI, Yardi)
* VBA programming language to write macros
* Nexus Payables
* Business Intelligence tools (Oracle Essbase/Smartview)