Principal EPM Business Analyst

Columbia Sportswear Finance teams oversee the financial health and forward strategy for a portfolio of four global brands. These teams exercise expertise across Compliance, Credit, Financial Planning and Reporting, Tax, Treasury, Procurement and Strategy. Advancing traditional Finance & Accounting functions, the organization is also driving exciting innovation in the application of advanced analytics and automated intelligence.

As the EPM Business Analyst you will support the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) infrastructure of our planning and reporting processes. Here you will focus on processes covered by models built in IBM Planning Analytics (PA)/TM1. Reporting to our EPM Manager, you will be responsible for gathering requirements and documenting new PA/TM1 models, maintaining and administering existing models, and acting as the first line of support for multiple PA/TM1 models. You'll rely on your collaboration and relationship building skills to partner with business leaders, targeted teams within the business, Business Intelligence (BI) resources, and Information Technology (IT) teams to gather business requirements, help design planning and reporting solutions, and lead and support initiatives to improve EPM reporting and planning capabilities.

HOW YOU'LL MAKE A DIFFERENCE

• Partner with business stakeholders to gather information which will drive the design and development of PA/TM1
• Lead the development of test plans and coordinate QA user acceptance, producing clearly written and well-organized design, administrative and end-user documentation
• Provide end user support across PA/TM1 models. This entails troubleshooting issues, managing client expectations, communicating progress, and ultimately resolving the issue
• Create and maintain training materials to maximize user learning and adoption; deliver training to end users
• Administer model security and manage biannual access reviews
• Partner with International teams to implement consistent global planning processes. Ensure alignment with international partners and organizational readiness
• Provide periodic status updates to ensure projects are delivered timely and satisfy business objectives. Utilize problem solving skills to propose and/or resolve project hurdles. Anticipate and communicate issues to project sponsor and stakeholders
• Partner with IT teams to define new data requirements including data structure, definitions, etc. Maintain positive open lines of communication with IT teams. Participate in cross-functional team meetings
• Manage some internal team operations, including bi-weekly backlog updates and continuous improvement projects

• An innate communicator and problem solver
• Relationship and collaboration focused
• Innovative and capable of providing thought leadership in the use of financial planning and reporting tools and processes
• Highly analytical
• Flexible and autonomous, demonstrating ability to self-start, develop solutions, multi-task and maintain deadlines for development initiatives

YOU HAVE

• A Bachelor's degree is preferred
• Strong project management and change management skills
• 5+ years of experience with business process and systems analysis, preferably in finance, planning, or other forecasting processes
• Applied experience with EPM tools (e.g., Planning Analytics/TM1, Anaplan, Onestream, SAP BPC, Oracle Hyperion Planning)
• Ability to interpret basic code across common programming or scripting languages (e.g., Python, SQL, JavaScript, or similar); comprehension of logical workflows within code to support troubleshooting, requirements analysis, and collaboration with technical teams
• Knowledge of reporting best practices; applied experience with Cognos Analytics, Power BI, Tableau, and/or other BI tools is preferred

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Columbia Sportswear Company is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law. Columbia Sportswear is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities. https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/22-088_EEOC_KnowYourRights6.12.pdf. If you need reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please notify your recruiter.