Capital Planning & Financial Modeling Consultant POST NUMBER: 474840
Location: New York, NY (2 days/week on site)
Duration: 3 months (highest urgency in first month)
Hours: Full-time, 8:30am–5:30pm
Pay Rate: $65-75/hour
Start: ASAP
Overview
Columbia University’s School of Engineering is seeking an experienced interim finance professional to support a high-priority capital planning initiative. This role will partner closely with the Director of Finance to help finalize and pressure-test a short-term capital plan tied to a potential new campus initiative (confidential).
This is a hands-on, analytical role focused on building and refining Excel-based capital budgets, identifying gaps and opportunities, and helping leadership understand the financial viability of the initiative in an uncertain economic environment. Key Responsibilities
- Build, refine, and maintain capital project budgets and financial models in Excel
- Develop a short-term capital plan that clearly quantifies knowns, assumptions, risks, and opportunities
- Consolidate and organize inputs across multiple workstreams (construction costs, internal resources, development conversations, staffing considerations, etc.)
- Support scenario modeling and cost/benefit analysis, including both expense and potential revenue impacts
- Think holistically about downstream financial implications (e.g., staffing/faculty costs, long-term operating impacts, potential grant or research revenue)
- Identify gaps in existing models and proactively propose solutions
- Prepare materials and insights to support leadership discussions, including an upcoming April budget review
- Interface with internal stakeholders including Finance leadership, Deans/Vice Deans, and select central partners
- Collect, structure, and validate data from multiple sources to ensure defensible assumptions
- 10 years of finance experience, ideally in capital budgeting, FP&A, project finance, or strategic financial planning
- Strong Excel expertise required (complex models, pivot tables, lookups, scenario analysis)
- Experience operating in ambiguous, discovery-oriented environments where not all inputs are known upfront
- Background in higher education, healthcare, real estate, construction finance, or other large CapEx environments is a plus (but not required)
- Highly analytical, detail-oriented, and able to work independently with minimal oversight
- Strong communicator who can translate complex financial concepts to non-finance stakeholders
- High-visibility project with direct exposure to senior leadership
- Opportunity to shape a foundational capital plan from near-final stages through leadership review
- Short-term, clearly defined engagement with meaningful impact
- Collaborative partnership with an experienced Director of Finance
- One interview with the Director of Finance
- One interview with Vice Deans
- Process is intentionally streamlined
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