Finance Lead Analyst

Overview

About Catalyst Brands:

Catalyst Brands is a leading U.S.-based retail organization formed in 2025 through the merger of JCPenney and SPARC Group, combining multiple iconic fashion brands under one umbrella. The company manages a diversified portfolio of well-known brands including Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, Nautica, Lucky Brand, and JCPenney. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Catalyst Brands focuses on delivering modern retail experiences while leveraging the heritage of established global brands. With a workforce of over tens of thousands and multi-billion-dollar revenue, the organization operates at a large scale across retail, e-commerce, and supply chain domains. The company emphasizes innovation, digital transformation, and customer-centric strategies to enhance brand value and consumer engagement. Catalyst Brands is expanding its global presence, including a growing capability centre in India that supports technology, digital operations, and analytics. It aims to drive operational excellence and business growth by integrating technology, data-driven insights, and efficient retail practices.

Lead Analyst – Operations Excellence (AI & GenAI)

Role Summary

Drive execution of Finance AI, automation, analytics, and agentic workflow initiatives. Identify opportunities, build prototypes, automate manual processes, and support deployment of AI solutions that improve productivity, quality, and cycle time.

Core Responsibilities:

AI & Automation Development

• Identify and assess automation opportunities
• Develop and deploy Finance AI use cases
• Build workflow automations and digital solutions
• Support implementation of AI agents and copilots

Process Improvement

• Analyze Finance processes for efficiency opportunities
• Eliminate non-value-added activities
• Standardize and document processes
• Measure productivity gains from automation

Analytics & Insights

• Build dashboards and KPI reporting
• Track adoption metrics and realized benefits
• Conduct data analysis and opportunity assessments

•Support business case development

AI Enablement Support

• Create prompts, workflows, and knowledge bases
• Support user training and adoption
• Assist Finance teams in leveraging AI tools
• Document best practices and reusable solutions

Process Excellence & Standardization

• Conduct process studies (cycle time, exception mapping, waste identification) across all finance towers.
• Support creation and maintenance of standardized SOPs, control checklists, and process playbooks.
• Perform RCA using Lean tools (5 Whys, Fishbone, Pareto) and document systemic improvement opportunities.
• Track SLA performance, productivity metrics, rework trends, and tower-level quality indicators.

Controls, Quality & Compliance:

• Support control testing, SOP compliance checks, and documentation updates across all operational towers.
• Review exceptions, mismatches, audit findings, and reconciliation issues; prepare detailed analyses for corrective/preventive actions.
• Assist in ensuring audit readiness through evidence collation and documentation hygiene.

Analytics, Insights & Reporting

• Build dashboards, trend charts, and daily/weekly/monthly reports for productivity, exceptions, defects, and automation impact.
• Work with datasets from Oracle, reconciliation tools, and tower-specific sources to identify insights and opportunities.
• Provide data-driven insights to support decision-making for managers and the Opex lead.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Management

• Collaborate with AP, Payroll, and Credit/CSA teams to gather inputs, validate findings, and pilot improvements.
• Engage with IT/Access, Procurement, Treasury, HR, Merchant Services, and Accounting/GL to resolve cross-functional issues.

Support communication and change-adoption efforts for new processes or digital solutions.

Systems Exposure

Preferred exposure to:

• AI Tools
• Power BI
• Power Automate
• Microsoft Copilot
• Excel Advanced
• SharePoint
• OneStream
• Oracle EBS
• Kyriba
• Python (preferred)
• SQL (preferred)

Experience

• 4–8 years experience
• Finance Operations / FP&A / Controllers / Shared Services
• Automation and reporting experience
• AI, analytics, or digital transformation project exposure preferred
• Experience working with large datasets and process improvement initiatives

Qualifications:

• CA Inter / CMA Inter / MBA Finance / B.Com / M.Com
• Power BI certification preferred
• Power Platform certification preferred
• AI / GenAI certifications desirable
• Python / Analytics certifications advantageous

Competencies:

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to work with large datasets and convert insights into action
• Structured communication and documentation capability
• Curiosity and comfort working with emerging digital/AI tools
• Ability to collaborate across multiple teams and functions
• Strong follow-through, discipline, and execution reliability

Behavioral Expectations

• High ownership mindset and learning agility
• Proactive in identifying risks, issues, and improvement opportunities
• Team-oriented and collaborative; supports multiple towers without friction
• Calm and structured working style in high-volume environments
• Demonstrates continuous improvement mindset and openness to digital transformation

Pay Range

INR ₹0.00 - INR ₹0.00 /Yr.