Real Estate Financial Operations Manager

Corporate Real Estate Financial Manager

Lead strategic financial operations, cost optimization, and capital planning supporting Truist's Corporate Real Estate and Workplace (CREW) organization. This role will be responsible for implementing a strategic financial management capability focused on cost, expense, and capital spend discipline across the real estate portfolio. The position serves as a key liaison between Corporate Finance, Accounting, Sourcing, third-party partner vendors, and internal business partners to drive accurate reporting, measurable cost savings, market-informed decision-making, and operational excellence. The Manager will lead strategic cost savings initiatives, benchmark real estate costs against market and peer data, and oversee development, governance, and execution of the annual capital plan. The role supports critical financial activities including invoice reconciliation and batching, capital project closeout and CIP reconciliation, rent forecasting, annual planning, monthly forecasting, monthly actuals analysis, and expense management, while also identifying opportunities to leverage automation, analytics, and enterprise platforms such as Power Apps, Snowflake, Power BI, TRIRIGA, workflow technologies, and related tools. The position requires strong financial acumen, executive presence, analytical depth, stakeholder management skills, and the ability to influence and lead complex cross-functional initiatives. The leader must translate data into actionable insights, build business cases, challenge current-state spend patterns, and drive scalable, well-controlled processes that support enterprise priorities and disciplined financial stewardship. *****Position is office centric with 5 days in office expectations.*****Position is not a remote role.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

1. Serve as a strategic financial business partner to Corporate Finance, Accounting, Sourcing, Technology, CREW leadership, and third-party service providers to support cost discipline, capital planning, and financial performance across the Corporate Real Estate portfolio.

2. Lead analysis of financial operations processes and spend drivers, including invoice reconciliation, payment batching, accrual validation, rent forecasting, capital project closeout, monthly financial reporting, and expense trend analysis.

3. Lead strategic cost savings initiatives by identifying opportunities, developing business cases, coordinating stakeholder alignment, and tracking realized benefits across operating expense and capital spend categories.

4. Benchmark CREW costs against market and peer data to inform sourcing decisions, vendor negotiations, capital allocation, expense management, and long-term portfolio financial strategy.

5. Oversee development, prioritization, governance, and performance tracking for the approximately $200M annual CREW capital plan, ensuring alignment to enterprise priorities, financial targets, risk considerations, and execution capacity.

6. Identify opportunities to streamline, automate, and improve business processes through technology and data solutions, reducing manual effort while improving accuracy, transparency, and controls.

7. Partner with technology teams to design, develop, test, and implement automation solutions utilizing Snowflake, Power Apps, Power BI, workflow technologies, and other enterprise platforms.

8. Support annual planning, quarterly forecasting, monthly forecast updates, and actuals analysis by providing financial insights, variance explanations, and operational reporting.

9. Develop and maintain reporting, dashboards, and key performance indicators that provide actionable insights into financial performance and operational effectiveness.

10. Lead complex data analysis efforts by integrating information from multiple systems and sources, validating data quality, and identifying trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.

11. Partner with project managers, lease administration teams, accounting teams, and external service providers to support capital project financial closeout activities, including Construction-in-Progress reconciliation and asset capitalization reviews.

12. Document business requirements, process flows, control points, and operational procedures to support business transformation, technology enablement, and ongoing process governance.

13. Drive continuous improvement efforts by evaluating current-state processes, identifying root causes of operational challenges, and implementing sustainable solutions.

14. Communicate findings, recommendations, benchmarking insights, cost savings opportunities, and capital plan performance to senior leadership through executive-ready presentations, reports, financial narratives, and analytics.

15. Act as a subject matter expert for financial operations processes within the Corporate Real Estate organization and provide guidance to team members and business partners.

16. Monitor operational performance, identify potential risks or control gaps, and recommend mitigation strategies to support compliance with internal policies and financial reporting requirements.

Required Qualifications:

1. Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Information Systems, Data Analytics, or related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.

2. 7 or more years of experience in business analysis, financial operations, accounting operations, financial planning and analysis, process improvement, or related disciplines.

3. Strong understanding of financial reporting, forecasting, budgeting, accrual accounting, and operational finance processes.

4. Strong executive presence with excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, including the ability to communicate complex financial concepts, recommendations, and trade-offs to senior leaders and both technical and non-technical audiences.

5. Experience developing financial strategies, cost savings plans, benchmarking analyses, capital plans, or business cases that support enterprise-level investment and expense decisions.

6. Demonstrated experience analyzing complex business processes and implementing process improvements or automation solutions.

7. Proven ability to lead complex cross-functional initiatives, influence stakeholders without direct authority, and drive alignment across Finance, Accounting, Supply Chain, Technology, Operations, and external partner teams.

8. Experience working with enterprise reporting and analytics platforms including Power BI, Snowflake, Alteryx, Power Platform, or similar technologies. Proficiency with either SQL or Python coding.

9. Strong quantitative and analytical skills with the ability to translate data into actionable business insights.

10. Strong problem-solving skills and ability to independently identify and resolve operational challenges.

11. Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and Source to Pay processes.

Preferred Qualifications:

1. Experience supporting Corporate Real Estate, Facilities Management, Lease Administration, Construction Project Accounting, or related operational functions.

2. Financial services or banking industry experience.

3. Knowledge of SAP, Ariba, TRIRIGA, ServiceNow, or similar enterprise platforms.

4. Experience supporting Construction-in-Progress accounting, capital project closeout processes, lease accounting, or real estate financial operations.

5. Lean Six Sigma, Business Analysis, Process Improvement, CPA, or related certifications.

6. Experience leading automation initiatives utilizing Power Automate, Power Apps, AI-enabled workflows, or related digital transformation technologies.