Assistant Director, academic Resource Analytics and Reporting

Position Summary

Applications are welcome from all qualified candidates. In line with UAE regulations, Emirati candidates are encouraged to apply.

 

New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) seeks to appoint an Assistant Director, academic Resource Analytics and Reporting, reporting to the Director of academic Resource Management and Fiscal affairs.

 

The Assistant Director, Academic Resource Analytics and Reporting leads the data analytics, management reporting and business solutions capability of the Office of Academic Resource Management and Fiscal Affairs (OARMFA). Reporting to the Director, the position delivers financial analysis and actionable insight across the University’s academic and research portfolios to support executive decision-making. Responsibilities include executive management reporting, financial forecasting and modelling, defining business requirements for reporting and workflow solutions, access and Delegation of Authority governance review, and continuous process improvement.

 

The position consolidates data across all OARMFA pillars — Academic Budget and Resource Planning, Research Financial Administration, and Fiscal Affairs/Academic Operations — to deliver timely, consistent reporting across all fund types, and collaborates closely with Finance, Institutional Research and Analytics, University technology functions and Shared Services to align core systems, source data and technical solutions. The position does not hold portfolio accountability for the areas it serves; it provides the models, methodologies, systems capability and reporting that allow those teams to operate.

 

Key Responsibilities:

Academic Resource Analytics and Management Reporting

• Lead the preparation and delivery of executive management reporting and analytical insight across OARMFA academic and research areas.
• Produce regular reporting for executive leadership covering budgets, actuals, commitments, multi-year forecasts, resource utilization, staffing and key performance indicators.
• Coordinate and consolidate data streams for monthly management reporting, quarterly reviews, and institutional or regulatory deliverables.
• Analyze financial and operational data to identify trends, evaluate variances, surface emerging risks and recommend corrective action.
• Design dashboards, executive reporting packages and briefing summaries that translate complex financial datasets into clear strategic insight.
• Oversee reporting across all fund structures, including academic and administrative staffing, sponsored projects and designated Fund 77 operations.
• Manage the office reporting calendar and ensure alignment and delivery across all OARMFA pillars.

Research Financial Administration integration

• Partner with the Associate Director and the Research Financial Administration (RFA) team to ensure research portfolio metrics are accurately integrated into executive reports.
• Provide standardized reporting methodologies, dataset structures and analytical toolkits to support research financial oversight.

Fiscal Affairs / Academic Operations integration

• Collaborate with Fiscal Affairs/Academic Operations to consolidate divisional financial projections and operational inputs from academic units.
• Convert unit-level operational inputs into unified, executive-ready analytical reports for leadership review.
• Ensure all reporting reflects current commitments, actual operational activity and emerging administrative data.

Business Systems and Solutions

• Identify reporting, system and workflow needs across OARMFA and translate them into functional business requirements for technology solutions.
• Lead OARMFA's participation in implementing and enhancing reporting software, automated workflows and business systems supporting research and academic finance.
• Work with institutional system owners, technology teams and delivery partners to ensure OARMFA's business requirements are reflected in delivered solutions.
• Coordinate user acceptance testing (UAT), solution rollouts, change management and user training across the office.
• Manage the ongoing business administration of designated tools and workflows, including business requirements, user needs and coordination of issues with the relevant system owners.
• Serve as OARMFA's designated reviewer for access to designated systems, chartfields and Delegation of Authority (DoA), ensuring access is appropriate to each individual's role, responsibilities and approved authority.
• Audit and maintain chartfield permissions, DoA controls and system roles to ensure proper segregation of duties and security compliance, updating them promptly as roles change and identifying and removing legacy, inactive or inappropriate access.
• Coordinate approved access changes with the relevant institutional system owners, maintaining documentation and an audit trail, while technical provisioning and system administration remain with those functions.
• Monitor implemented solutions and coordinate enhancements where changing academic, research or administrative requirements create new business needs.
• Maintain standard operating procedures, process documentation and technical guidebooks for critical office applications and tools, supporting continuity and consistent use.
• Promote knowledge sharing and documentation to safeguard business continuity across OARMFA systems.

Academic Budget and Resource Planning systems

• Support the implementation and continuous improvement of planning applications used for position control, hiring plans and academic budgeting.
• Translate Pillar 1 functional needs into technical enhancements and automated reporting solutions.

Research Financial Administration systems

• Oversee system set-up and business administration for key research administration software tools and workflows.
• Provide functional leadership and guidance to the Research Financial Administrator on data management, software tools and operational workflows.
• Collaborate with RFA leadership to identify software feature requests and reporting requirements for research grant management.

Fiscal Affairs / Academic Operations systems

• Maintain applications and automated workflows supporting divisional reporting, expenditure tracking and routine operational approvals.
• Work with Fiscal Affairs to ensure academic unit operational requirements are integrated into system solutions and office workflows.
• Shared Services and Business Process Coordination
• Serve as OARMFA's primary operational liaison to Shared Services and centralised administrative service providers across the University.
• Streamline cross-functional processes and resolve transactional issues involving platforms such as AdminLink, Upwork, Concur and iBuy.
• Track open transactions and systemic processing delays to prevent adverse impact on financial commitments, accruals and faculty service delivery.
• Act as a central escalation and triage point for complex, cross-functional operational issues, ensuring proper routing to functional owners.
• Facilitate clear communication between Shared Services and OARMFA team members where processing activity affects financial forecasts or reporting deadlines.
• Drive implementation and adoption of new Shared Services platforms and procedures within OARMFA.
• Identify recurring operational bottlenecks and partner with University administrative teams to implement process improvements.

Cross-pillar application

• Ensure operational issues originating in Shared Services are transparent to portfolio leads in Pillars 1, 2 and 3 and reflected in financial risk modelling.
• Maintain open channels with administrative partners so that transactional processing aligns with financial forecasts.
• Establish matrixed functional support relationships across teams to reduce administrative silos and streamline operations.

Process Improvement, Standards and Advisory Support

• Lead continuous business process improvement across OARMFA, strengthening data accuracy, workflow efficiency, internal controls and service quality.
• Eliminate redundant manual processes by maximising the capability of enterprise systems and centralised data repositories.
• Collaborate across OARMFA pillars to establish unified standards for modelling, reporting formats and operational procedures.
• Evaluate policy modifications and regulatory changes to determine their operational, reporting and systems impact on the office.
• Provide subject matter expertise for strategic initiatives, ad hoc institutional projects and executive decision support.
• Mentor OARMFA staff on financial modelling techniques, reporting software, data analysis and workflow standard operating procedures.
• Advise the Director on long-term strategies to strengthen the team's analytical capability and operational performance.

Qualifications

Required Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Economics, Data Analytics, Higher Education Administration, Research Administration or a related field.

Required Experience:

• More than 3 years of progressively responsible experience in financial analysis, resource planning, management reporting, research administration or business analysis within higher education or a research institute.
• Proven track record of designing executive-level management reporting, visual analytics and decision support tools.
• Demonstrated experience in quantitative forecasting, complex financial modelling and scenario analysis.
• Demonstrated experience translating operational requirements into technical business specifications and guiding software implementation projects.
• Experience handling complex financial, payroll, academic and research datasets across disparate institutional databases.
• Direct experience participating in system implementations, testing protocols, change management and software adoption.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and hands-on experience with business intelligence, data visualization or workflow platforms.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and critical-thinking capability, with the ability to turn complex data into clear strategic summaries.
• Deep understanding of university operations, academic administration, research funding structures and faculty staffing processes.
• Exceptional communication, interpersonal and stakeholder management skills, with demonstrated ability to build consensus across academic and administrative teams.
• Proven ability to establish operational standards and exert influence without direct supervisory authority.

Preferred Education:

• Master’s Degree in a related field.
• Relevant professional certification (e.g. CPA, PMP, CFA).
• Active professional development in analytics, project management, business analysis, higher education finance or research administration.

Preferred Experience:

• Familiarity with enterprise higher education platforms (e.g. Workday, Oracle Cloud, PeopleSoft, Anaplan, Banner).
• Hands-on expertise with business intelligence tools (e.g. Tableau, Power BI, Looker).

Additional Information

About NYUAD

 

NYU Abu Dhabi is a degree-granting research university with a fully integrated liberal arts and science undergraduate program in the Arts, Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Engineering. NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU New York, and NYU Shanghai, form the backbone of NYU’s global network university, an interconnected network of portal campuses and academic centers across six continents that enable seamless international mobility of students and faculty in their pursuit of academic and scholarly activity. This global university represents a transformative shift in higher education, one in which the intellectual and creative endeavors of academia are shaped and examined through an international and multicultural perspective. As a major intellectual hub at the crossroads of the Arab world, NYUAD serves as a center for scholarly thought, advanced research, knowledge creation, and sharing, through its academic, research, and creative activities.