Search

SKIP_TO_MAIN_CONTENT
careers header, Starlight

Careers

Senior Financial Analyst, Portfolio Finance

Location

Head Office

Overview

Reporting to the Controller, Finance, the Senior Financial Analyst will be a key member of a finance team that oversees Canadian residential portfolios, responsible for financial management, reporting and accounting for various portfolios that are owned by Starlight and/​or large institutional investors. 

The role will act as a key business partner to various teams within Starlight to help provide insightful, timely and accurate financial and operational information to assist with optimizing decisions surrounding the operation of the properties which ultimately allows Starlight to maximize returns for our investors. The role will have exposure to all levels of management and develop and leverage relationships with all internal stakeholders including asset management, investments, leasing, shared service finance teams including treasury, property accounting (CORE), tax and other business lines as required to successfully execute their responsibilities. 

As part of Starlight’s commitment to innovation, the successful candidate will embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies as core tools of the modern finance professional — proactively applying them to work smarter and elevate quality and helping colleagues adopt them so the team stays ahead of the rapid changes reshaping the profession.

Duties and Responsibilities

Financial Accounting

  • Oversee completion of month-end close ensuring accuracy, timeliness and completeness of financial results for multiple portfolios, as required. 
  • Ensure supporting documentation in place for all ledgers to support internal and external disclosures and reporting. 
  • Maintain General Ledger and other support for full monthly financial close, including journal entries and analysis as required to ensure the integrity of financial and operational information. 
  • Utilize business intelligence tools and other standardized reporting frameworks to prepare working papers for monthly reporting. 
  • Prepare quarterly/year-end financial statements and support the team with managing the external audits for each portfolio, as required. 
  • Manage process improvement projects to streamline accounting processes, as required. 

Financial Analysis

  • Review and analyze monthly reporting for portfolios to understand key variances and communicate to internal stakeholders (primarily senior management and asset management team) for each property including ensuring commentary reflects the underlying performance of the assets and is complete and accurate. 
  • Ensure technology tools reflect the right outputs to internal stakeholders by partnering with other internal departments. 
  • Assist with the review of budgets and analysis for budget inputs for the properties as part of each annual budgeting cycle. 
  • Assist with other financial management initiatives or ad-hoc projects, as required. 

Transaction support (Acquisitions, Dispositions, Financing, etc.)

  • Provide support on financial aspects of property acquisitions, dispositions, and property financing activities, as required. 
  • Assist in other business transactions to provide financial support, as required. 
  • Perform acquisition, disposition and refinancing accounting. 

Cash and Debt Management

  • Assisting with the management of cash availability, including review of cash position reporting prepared by the Starlight shared service treasury team to ensure accurate cash reporting and forecasting. 
  • Assisting with the management of the partnership’s debt portfolios, including ensuring all loan provisions are appropriately complied with and any covenant reporting is accurate, timely and complete. 

AI and Technology Adoption

  • Act as an early adopter and role model for AI and automation within the team, treating these tools as a core part of how work gets done. 
  • Proactively apply approved AI tools to enhance the efficiency and quality of accounting, analysis and reporting workflows, and help turn those gains into repeatable processes. 
  • Identify, test and help implement AI-enabled process improvements, sharing learnings with peers and more junior staff. 
  • Apply strong professional judgment to review and validate AI-assisted output, safeguarding accuracy, data integrity and compliance. 

Requirements

  • 2 – 4 years of accounting / financial reporting experience, preferably in real estate 
  • CPA required, or in final stages of receipt of CPA 
  • University degree in accounting / finance 
  • Public reporting experience (either CPA firm, or industry) required 
  • Thorough understanding of accounting principles (IFRS, ASPE
  • Moderate Microsoft Excel skills, ERP/​Yardi experience an asset but not required 
  • Knowledge of Workiva software a strong asset 
  • Knowledge of AI prompts, array of AI technologies available and systems data structure (inputs/​outputs) as well as demonstrated ability to implement AI or technology into process a strong asset.