Business Manager (Finance & Procurement), Research Operations

Overview

Position Summary

Leadership

• Provide guidance and leadership to team members and collaborators to promote a culture of analytical excellence and accountability.
• Input and translate institutional objectives and vision into departmental targets and performance expectations
• Lead the team through change and develop a new function based on principles of responsiveness, customer-centric, operational excellence and add-value
• Proactively develop staff and build team ethos and capacity
• Manage effective staff development to enable succession planning and cross training

Strategic Financial Oversight

• Oversee the preparation of consolidated financial and planning reports for senior stakeholders, ensuring clarity, accuracy, and actionable insights.
• Oversee forward-looking financial analysis, forecasting, and modeling to inform strategic decisions and long-term planning for the VPR
• Ensure insights are delivered timely and with added-value information to customers and managers. Proactively escalate and prompt issues with problem-solving attitude.
• Lead on strategic revenue generation and act as a first point of resolution for procurement and billing issues
• Integrated Planning and contract interface:
• Lead the development, review, and consolidation of budgets, ensuring alignment with KAUST’s
• strategic objectives and financial sustainability.
• Work with central Procurement on sourcing strategies, tendering routes, supplier selection, contract compliance.
• Strengthen contract visibility: renewals, supplier performance KPIs, spend analytics, savings tracking
• Process Optimization:
• Drive automation and continuous improvement of financial and planning processes to enhance efficiency, transparency, and data integrity.
• Build standardisation and resilience in team operations towards metrics of efficiency and skills growth
• Manage risks: cost pressures, funding constraints, procurement lead times, and mitigate proactively

Stakeholder Engagement

• Translate complex financial data into clear strategic insights to support the Vice-President, Directors and VPR in resource prioritization and performance assessment.
• Serve as a trusted liaison between Research, Finance, and Procurement teams, facilitating informed decision-making and issue resolution.
• Partner proactively with Finance, Procurement, and senior leadership to ensure budgetary discipline, compliance, and optimal use of institutional resources.

• Compliance & Policy Alignment

• Ensure adherence to KAUST’s financial policies, procedures, and governance frameworks while recommending enhancements where needed.
• Lead the financial and auditing activities in partnerships with the auditing department, ensuing appropriate follow up actions, training and other recommendations.

Other Duties

• Undertake additional strategic initiatives or projects as required to support the evolving needs of Research.

Competencies

• Be able to act independently at senior level with problem-solving attitude
• Act as a leader for staff, motivate them, translate objectives into actions and build a high-performing team
• Demonstrated solid experience in operational excellence and change delivery
• Easily navigate conflicting priorities and ambiguities
• Open and transparent communication with senior managers on issues, solutions, challenges and areas of improvement
• Handle change positively and can lead staff through it
• Demonstrated strategic and analytical thinking
• Proven ability to engage senior leaders and influence decision-making
• Strong understanding of financial management, procurement frameworks, and institutional planning processes.
• High level of initiative with the ability to identify challenges, propose solutions, and drive implementation.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills to collaborate effectively across departments and hierarchical levels and lead staff.
• Commitment to continuous process improvement and innovation

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, Finance, Economics, or a related field.
• A professional certification (CIMA, CMA, CPA, or equivalent) is highly desirable.

Experience

• At least of 8 years of progressively responsible experience in financial planning, budgeting, or resource management, preferably within a university or research institution.
• Demonstrated experience in building high performing teams, lead through change and develop robust functional areas
• Strong organizational, problem-solving, and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a complex environment.
• organizational, problem-solving, and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a complex environment.