Director/Senior Director, Financial Planning & Analysis

Boston, MA, USA ● Vancouver, BC, Canada Req #142 Xenon Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:XENE) – a biopharmaceutical company with operations in Vancouver, BC, Canada and Boston, MA, USA – is committed to delivering innovative medicines to provide a brighter future for patients suffering from neurological disorders. 

At Xenon, we are advancing an exciting pipeline of neurology-focused therapies, with a particular emphasis on novel treatments for both adult and pediatric patients with epilepsy. XEN496 is currently being evaluated in the Phase 3 “EPIK” clinical trial in young patients with KCNQ2-DEE, a rare and severe form of childhood epilepsy. Late-stage development plans are also underway for our XEN1101 program, building upon the compelling data from the Phase 2b “X-TOLE” study in adult patients with focal epilepsy. We are also proud of the leading-edge science coming out of our discovery labs, with many early-stage research programs underway. In addition to Xenon’s proprietary programs, we have ongoing collaborations with our valued pharmaceutical partners. With a healthy balance sheet to support our growth plans, we continue to build a fully-integrated, premier neuroscience company with strong discovery, development, and commercial operations.

Our employees are smart, passionate, dedicated, and driven by their incredibly important work to discover, develop, and deliver new medicines for patients in need. Building and maintaining a respectful, collaborative, inclusive, and productive culture is a priority for us.  We are looking for great people who thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic work environment to join our team during this transformative time for Xenon.

We are seeking a Director/Senior Director, Financial Planning & Analysis to join our growing Financial Planning & Analysis team. The Director/Senior Director, Financial Planning & Analysis will build and lead the R&D finance function and serve as a business partner to the Discovery and Development organizations and support Xenon’s growing portfolio of discovery and development programs by enabling effective financial forecasting, reporting and analysis of operating results to enable sound business decisions. This is a hands-on role with the possibility of growing a team in accordance with business needs.

This position reports to the Vice President, Financial Planning & Analysis and will be located in either the Vancouver, BC, Canada or Boston, MA, USA location.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead all budgeting and forecasting initiatives for the R&D function, including monthly and quarterly reporting of financial results for management and department heads.
• Manage the quarterly forecasting process by partnering with department managers to align the forecast with the most current business assumptions.
• Provide financial business support to the Development organization by acting as their business partner, developing an understanding of current and future status of ongoing non-clinical studies, clinical trials and Chemistry, Manufacturing & Control (CMC) activities to drive the timely preparation of budgetary, forecast, and long-range planning assumptions and cost inputs to the overall planning process.
• Partner with the clinical study management teams to provide in-depth analysis of business results, analyze and explain variances, identify emerging risks and opportunities, and regularly communicate findings to the leadership team.
• Review and provide feedback on financial terms and costs for vendor contracts and negotiations.
• Collaborate with the Accounting team on month end and quarter close activities.
• Prepare and provide audit support and analytics.
• Develop financial models for clinical studies.
• Responsible for developing dashboards and advanced analytics to support decision making; contribute reports for the consolidation of the monthly and quarterly reporting packages, and for presentations to the Senior Executive Team and Board of Directors
• Serve as a financial business partner to senior R&D leaders to drive effective business decision making, challenge assumptions to ensure sound financial decisions and to achieve corporate objectives and targets.
• Support new system implementations or enhancement to systems to address planning and reporting needs (i.e., ERP, EPM, Procurement systems).
• Recruit, lead, direct, develop, coach, and evaluate direct reports, if any, in accordance with the Company’s Human Resource policies and practices.
• Act in accordance with Company policies, including, for example, the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and ensure policies are understood and followed by direct reports, if any.
• Other duties as required.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent required.
• Professional designation (CPA, MBA or CFA) preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years’ related finance experience.
• Biotech experience in a development-stage company or pharmaceutical experience is required.
• Exceptional financial modelling and analysis skills with strong attention to detail and accuracy.
• Excellent oral and written communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills as well as the ability to build credibility and trust inside the Company.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with sound business judgement, with an ability to constructively challenge assumptions.
• Excellent organizational skills with the ability to manage concurrent deliverables and work effectively with minimal direction in a challenging, high performance and changing environment.
• Strong aptitude with financial tools and systems, experience with implementations and system enhancement projects.