Chief Financial Officer Full Time

As a leader in advancing New York’s energy transition, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has remained a credible, objective, and trusted partner in our State’s energy planning as well as deploying new and innovative technologies to expand New York’s economy. NYSERDA has worked for the past 50 years to protect the environment and help New Yorkers increase energy efficiency, lower energy costs and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. NYSERDA engages with stakeholders including residents, business owners, developers, community leaders, local government officials, universities, utilities, investors, entrepreneurs, and more, to develop, invest, and foster conditions that:

• Attract the private sector capital investment needed to expand New York’s clean energy economy.
• Overcome barriers to using clean energy at a large-scale in New York.
• Enable New York’s communities and residents to benefit equitably in the clean energy transition.

Job Overview

The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) helps deliver on NYSERDA’s mission and achieve New York goals in a fiscally responsible manner. The CFO is a self-motivated, knowledgeable, and innovative individual with strong analytical, interpersonal, and communications skills. The position is responsible for NYSERDA’s Controller functions, Financial Planning and Analysis including municipal finance, and entity-wide Controls and Risk Management. The CFO collaborates with other NYSERDA officers and other NYS government organizations to actively contribute to NYSERDA’s strategy development, designing and executing funding roadmaps that allow NYSERDA to meaningfully contribute to the achievement of the State’s energy transformation goals.

The CFO reports to the President and CEO and will be responsible for the following entity-wide functions:

• Controller and Treasury, which spans accounting operations, payroll, treasury management, financial reporting, detailed budget development, and oversight of NYSERDA’s financial systems infrastructure.
• Financial Planning & Analysis, including medium-long range planning and budgeting, funding optimization, liquidity management, and municipal financing including bond issuances and retail financing programs supported by state revolving funds.
• Risk Management and Controls, including financial regulatory compliance, insurance, information security, and NYSERDA’s internal controls framework and effectiveness. In this capacity the CFO serves as NYSERDA’s Internal Controls Officer and works closely with the internal audit department.

The CFO shall monitor and effectively manage fiscal and related operational matters for the Authority’s diverse programs, with an annual budget of approximately $2.2 billion across multiple funding sources, and transaction volume of approximately 4,000 contracts and nearly 150,000 vendor invoices each year.

Primary Responsibilities

• Provide leadership, direction, and management of all financial activities. Maintain a culture, policies, and procedures that promote sound fiscal management and stewardship, transparency, and accountability while concurrently fostering innovation and efficiencies.
• Provide strategic recommendations for fiscal strategies by evaluating trends, designing systems, allocating resources, resolving problems, leveraging technology, and implementing change.
• Develop statewide networks and proactively collaborate with sister entities to develop and implement forward-looking strategies that enable sustainable, appropriately scaled funding mechanisms to generate the resources needed to execute on NYSERDA’s strategic plans in support of NYS goals. Serve as a thought leader, representing NYSERDA at events to build support for overall financial strategies.
• Effectively engage with the Authority’s Board on relevant matters. Serve as the primary officer liaison to the Board’s Audit & Finance Committee, ensuring the provisioning of timely and relevant financial and risk data to ensure Board members are well-informed and able to successfully execute their fiduciary duties.
• Provide executive-level updates and advisement. Serve as an advisor to the President and CEO and other NYSERDA officers on strategic financial matters and planning. Coordinate with all executive leadership to foster cohesive planning, optimal use of funds, and improved understanding of NYSERDA’s financial results, trends, and outlook.
• Ensure that all reports with financial data provide timely, accurate, and actionable information that cross-maps to relevant operational and program performance results. Ensure compliance with relevant FASB and GASB accounting standards as well as applicable laws and tax guidelines.
• Ensure sufficient staffing, both in volume and skill level, to facilitate timely and accurate execution of all financial and risk management activities of NYSERDA. Build and maintain high-performing teams that reliably deliver trusted results. Foster and maintain a positive culture across the CFO office and all of NYSERDA that values integrity, collaboration, efficient operations, and transparency.
• Serve as an ambassador within and outside of NYSERDA, communicating proactively to clearly convey financial realities, expected future direction, and opportunities to raise and utilize funds effectively.
• Actively survey funding opportunities and develop and implement durable strategies to attract new funding that improves the leverage of NYS investments and diversifies revenue sources. Engage with key stakeholders and cultivate relationships to expand potential funding sources.
• Oversee the Finance/Controller functions to ensure effective management of financial transactions (accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll), asset management and investments, cashflow management, grants compliance, accounting, external financial statements and related internal management reporting, and annual budget development. Partner with other departments to stay abreast of upcoming transactions, provide meaningful insights for decision making, and understand and explain financial results in the context of underlying business drivers. Coordinate with the Board’s Audit & Finance Committee and ensure timely execution of annual external financial audits. Appropriately invest and accounting for fiduciary funds including the employee post-retirement benefits fund.
• Oversee Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) to diversify and optimize the use of all available funding. This team is responsible for: medium-long term financial planning and budgeting including liquidity management and collaboration with programmatic staff to optimize the use of funds; structuring bond issues and other municipal finance mechanisms; and oversight of revolving funds for home energy improvements and the related consumer loan issuances, servicing, and portfolio/loss management. The FP&A team is expected to foster statewide collaboration to identify and implement funding mechanisms that boost financial leverage and attain the scale needed for transformative energy investments that benefit New Yorkers. The CFO is expected to support this team through state and regional outreach and networking and insights about challenges and opportunity areas.
• Oversee Risk Management and Controls functions. In this capacity, serve as the Board-appointed Internal Control Officer, to assist in the design, implementation, and assessment of internal controls and meeting requirements under the New York State Governmental Accountability Audit and Internal Control Act. Ensure agreement on entity-level risk appetite and, within that framework, periodic execution of risk and controls self-assessments on a regular cadence. Coordinate with the Internal Audit department to ensure audit plans are calibrated to relative risk, with timely testing and issue resolution. Stay abreast of federal and state funding regulatory standards including for federal grants and coordinate NYSERDA-wide to ensure policies and processes support consistent compliance. Ensure appropriate insurance is in place commensurate with NYSERDA’s activities and relative risk, and review and approve NYSERDA contracts over a certain threshold level to ensure appropriate fiscal controls.
• In a related function, oversee the Information Security function headed up NYSERDA’s Information Security Officer, to effectively protect and maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and related infrastructure assets, manage the risk of information security exposure, promote information security training and awareness, and monitor, evaluate and respond to information security threats.
• Perform other responsibilities as assigned.
• Perform all managerial and supervisory responsibilities with respect, fairness, consistency, and inclusion across the workforce.

Minimum Qualifications

• Applicants must be U.S. citizens at the time of application and for the duration of their employment
• Must be New York state residents for the duration of their employment
• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field of study with15 years of experience in public/private organizations conducting financial management, including at least 7 years of experience in a management role; OR a Master’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field of study with13 years of experience in public/private organizations conducting financial management, including at least 7 years of experience in a management role
• Experience overseeing financial functions in a high-volume, complex transaction environment.
• Must be able to ensure accurate application of accounting principles and delivery of relevant and timely financial reporting.
• Familiarity with bond structuring, municipal finance, and project/structured finance. Must be able to demonstrate a strong understanding of financial markets and success leveraging municipal fundraising mechanisms.
• Experience overseeing banking and/or lending functions.
• Deep knowledge of risk management and controls best practices including risk assessments and calibration and controls testing.
• Proficiency with financial/accounting software packages and MS Office.
• Able to travel occasionally among our Albany, Buffalo, and NYC locations (less than 40%).

Additional Qualifications

• Strong prioritization skills; able to operate nimbly and adapt in the face of change.
• Able to establish trust in relationships; skilled at active listening and forging compromise agreements. Able to influence others and build support for challenging initiatives.
• Strong manager, coach, mentor, and developer of talent; able to develop a team to achieve their potential, innovate and uncover new possibilities, and deliver impactful and relevant outcomes.
• Innovative thinker who has demonstrated an ability to develop creative solutions grounded in practical application and appropriate controls. Must be well-versed in market transformation techniques and able to help drive large-scale transformational change.
• Top-notch presentation and interpersonal skills that resonate with audiences of different backgrounds; able to communicate persuasively, concisely, and unambiguously in speech and in writing.

Preferred Qualifications

• Certified Public Accountant designation or comparable

Please submit two files, one for your cover letter and another for a resume.

For further information on our hiring policies, employment opportunities for people with disabilities and EEO please click on this link and scroll down to the Policies section.

Please note that during the application process, you may be prompted to opt-in to Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) scoring. This is an automatic request in the ADP system but is not a feature that is used by NYSERDA in its recruiting and hiring process. Your response will have no impact on your application to NYSERDA.

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