Manager, Transformation Performance and Finance

About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

The Manager of Transformation Performance and Finance will establish the financial, performance-management and benefits-realization disciplines required to ensure that the Wealth Management transformation portfolio delivers its commitments. This manager will create a single, reliable view of investment, resource utilization, delivery performance, adoption, client and field outcomes, and realized value.

Reporting to the Head of Transformation Enablement, the manager will oversee data and financial analysts and partner with Finance, Strategic Planning, Capital Management, Procurement, Technology, Product, Program Management and initiative leaders. The role will manage the full financial lifecycle of transformation activity, including annual planning, capital and expense budgets, forecasts, software and vendor costs, consulting arrangements, capitalization and utilization, reallocations, accruals, benefits tracking and executive reporting.

This is a hands-on management role with enterprise visibility. The manager will not merely report historical results. The manager will challenge assumptions, identify performance gaps, improve the quality of decisions, and recommend actions when initiatives are over budget, underutilizing approved capital, missing milestones, failing to adopt, or not producing the intended client, field, operational or financial benefits.

Key Responsibilities

Transformation Performance Management

Design and own the integrated performance-management framework for the transformation portfolio, covering delivery, financial performance, client outcomes, advisor and employee impact, adoption, service, risk, controls and benefits realization.

Define standard KPI dictionaries, calculation methods, baselines, targets, data sources, owners, reporting frequency and escalation thresholds.

Create portfolio dashboards and executive reporting that distinguish activity, outputs, adoption, outcomes and realized benefits.

Establish a disciplined monthly performance review process and surface initiatives requiring intervention, additional evidence, reforecasting, scope change or discontinuation.

Ensure reporting is decision-oriented, concise and traceable to authoritative financial and operational data.

Benefits Realization and Value Assurance

Create and maintain benefits records for each transformation initiative, including expected client, field, growth, revenue, expense, productivity, capacity, risk and service outcomes.

Validate benefit assumptions, baselines, timing, dependencies and accountable business owners before investment approval.

Monitor whether delivered capabilities are adopted and whether adoption is producing the expected outcomes.

Partner with initiative and business owners to define corrective actions when benefits are delayed, overstated or not supported by evidence.

Coordinate post-implementation reviews and maintain a clear line of sight from approved business case through realized value.

Budgeting, Forecasting and Financial Planning

Lead annual and multi-year financial planning for the Transformation Office, including capital, operating expense, software, vendors, consulting, data, technology and internal resource requirements.

Coordinate transformation inputs to strategic planning, annual budgeting, quarterly forecasting and capital-planning processes.

Maintain initiative-level and portfolio-level budgets, forecasts, commitments, actuals, accruals, variances and estimate-at-completion views.

Develop scenario analyses and recommendations to support sequencing, funding tradeoffs, capacity decisions and portfolio reallocation.

Ensure financial plans reconcile across Transformation, Finance, Technology, Procurement and business records.

Capital Governance and Utilization

Monitor approved capital, release schedules, capitalization eligibility, utilization, in-service timing and forecasted carryover in partnership with Finance and Accounting.

Identify underutilized, delayed or stranded capital early and recommend acceleration, reallocation, reforecasting or release.

Ensure initiative teams understand approved funding boundaries and provide timely evidence supporting capitalization and financial controls.

Prepare capital-governance materials and maintain a transparent record of funding decisions, conditions, changes and accountable owners.

Track the relationship between capital consumed, capabilities delivered, adoption achieved and benefits realized.

Expense, Vendor and Consulting Management

Manage the transformation portfolio view of software licenses, subscriptions, data expenses, external services, contractors and consulting arrangements.

Coordinate statements of work, purchase orders, contract financials, rate cards, milestones, invoices, accruals, renewals and termination dates with Procurement, Legal and initiative owners.

Assess consulting and vendor utilization against contracted deliverables, internal capability transfer, budget and measurable value.

Identify duplicate tools, unused licenses, overlapping consulting scopes and other opportunities to reduce or redirect expense.

Maintain forward visibility into contractual commitments, renewal decisions and exit costs.

Management Information and Data Quality

Establish the authoritative portfolio dataset and controls required for consistent reporting across finance, delivery, adoption and benefits.

Partner with source-system owners to improve data definitions, completeness, timeliness, reconciliation and lineage.

Automate recurring reporting and analysis where practical while maintaining appropriate review and control points.

Ensure assumptions, manual adjustments and data limitations are transparent in management reporting.

Produce targeted analyses that identify performance drivers, emerging risks and opportunities for resource or funding reallocation.

Team Leadership

Lead, develop and set priorities for data analysts and financial analysts supporting the transformation portfolio.

Allocate analyst capacity across recurring reporting, planning cycles, initiative support, ad hoc analysis and executive requests.

Establish quality standards, review controls, documentation and cross-training to improve consistency and reduce key-person dependency.

Build team capability in financial analysis, data management, visualization, benefits realization, executive communication and business partnership.

Create a culture of constructive challenge, accuracy, responsiveness and accountability.

Governance and Executive Support

Prepare materials for transformation investment, portfolio and performance forums, including financial position, KPI performance, benefits, risks and decisions required.

Maintain the portfolio decision log for budget changes, funding reallocations, benefit changes and material performance interventions.

Partner with initiative owners to ensure that investment requests are complete, comparable and grounded in measurable outcomes.

Support the Chief Transformation Officer and strategic transformation executives with fact-based insight and recommendations.

Experience and Qualifications

8+ years