Associate, Operational Corporate Strategy- Project Management

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Summary

Ares is seeking a versatile Associate, Program Manager to work within our Corporate Strategy – Operational Strategy Group (“OSG”). Our OSG leads cross-functional projects to define and implement process and technology solutions across the entire Ares organization.

Our team works closely with business stakeholders in our five lines of business (Credit, Private Equity, Real Estate, Secondary Markets and Strategic Initiatives) and across our business operations functions (Compliance, Finance and Accounting, Investment Operations, Investor Relations, Legal, Portfolio Management, Relationship Management, Tax, and Technology).

We seek a candidate who can analyze business processes and technology, lead discussions with senior stakeholders, provide process improvement suggestions, and execute using their specific industry knowledge and problem-solving capabilities.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities

• Identify best practices for operational processes and system optimizations
• Communications with business stakeholders relative to the status
• Drive change adoption across the organization
• Training/Acceptance plan development and execution
• Ability and willingness to be hands-on in all aspects of project management, including:
• Deliver presentations to business partners at multiple levels, including process owners, senior managers, and executives, focusing on takeaways, answering questions clearly and at the appropriate level of detail
• Project Management
• Process workflow documentation and diagrams
• Collaborate with business stakeholders to create business cases, project plans, steering committee presentations, business requirements, and other project or program documentation
• Drive project lifecycle with ability to “connect the dots” between upstream/downstream dependencies and planning needs, while multitasking across multiple deliverables
• Serve as an advisor to business stakeholders, corporate functions and third-party service providers during project lifecycle and be go-to point for details and status updates on the project or program
• Technically proficient communicator who can translate business language and requirements to technical teams and vice versa
• Requirements gathering, documentation, use case development

Qualifications

This role requires a dynamic, adaptive, and experienced professional who can build and maintain strong business partner relationships. This position will require flexibility and rapid learning to become an expert in multiple functional areas and investment asset classes. The ideal candidate should have demonstrated an ability to manage large scale change programs. Successful collaboration across all business functions, strategies, and external vendors will be crucial.

Strong knowledge of alternative investment asset classes is highly preferred.

Given the broad nature of projects in our queue, knowledge of investor lifecycles, fund lifecycles, alternative investment classes, and/or investment and investor data warehouses, will allow the candidate to make an immediate impact upon joining the firm.

Education

Undergraduate degree in Accounting, Economics, Finance, General Business, or Management preferred. An MBA is also beneficial, but not required.

Experience Required

• Understanding of Fund, Investor, and Trade lifecycles
• Demonstrates a passion for continuous improvement and eagerness to identify and solve problems
• Exhibiting an individual commitment to continuous improvement through innovation, upskilling, simplification, and adoption of digital tools
• Domain knowledge of Alternative Investments (Private Credit/Private Equity/Real Estate/Secondaries)
• Experience in designing strategies and leading change and growth initiatives
• Excellent Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio skills
• Assist in the analysis and design of new business processes around requirements definition, information gathering, and consistent documentation methodologies
• 3-5 years of experience in consulting, process re-engineering, and project management
• An analytical mind and a passion/interest in bringing new ideas to increase the efficiency of existing processes
• Understanding of finance, accounting, investment and support functions including treasury, cash forecasting, revenue, or expense management

Helpful Experience

• Consulting experience strongly preferred
• Understanding of data analytics and reporting solutions, such as Power BI

Reporting Relationships

Compensation

The anticipated base salary range for this position is listed below. Total compensation may also include a discretionary performance-based bonus. Note, the range takes into account a broad spectrum of qualifications, including, but not limited to, years of relevant work experience, education, and other relevant qualifications specific to the role.

$100,000.00 - $120,000.00

The firm also offers robust Benefits offerings. Ares U.S. Core Benefits include Comprehensive Medical/Rx, Dental and Vision plans; 401(k) program with company match; Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA); Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSA) with company contribution; Basic and Voluntary Life Insurance; Long-Term Disability (LTD) and Short-Term Disability (STD) insurance; Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and Commuter Benefits plan for parking and transit.

Ares offers a number of additional benefits including access to a world-class medical advisory team, a mental health app that includes coaching, therapy and psychiatry, a mindfulness and wellbeing app, financial wellness benefit that includes access to a financial advisor, new parent leave, reproductive and adoption assistance, emergency backup care, matching gift program, education sponsorship program, and much more.