HR Advisory Senior Associate - Equity Methods

Equity Methods seeks a results-focused, growth-oriented consulting professional to support and drive client engagements serving the chief human resources officers and compensation executives at Fortune 500 companies and beyond. Our HR practice offers you the ability to apply core economics, finance, and tax principles in a way that directly impacts the C-suite at client firms. 

As a Senior Associate in our HR Advisory practice group, you’ll apply your previous 1-5 years of experience in economic or valuation consulting, management consulting, litigation consulting, or public accounting (tax, audit or advisory) to the world of compensation analytics, modeling, and strategy.

If you enjoy problem-solving, are comfortable both excelling in client service and geeking out with technical models, and have a collaborative, client-focused mindset, then we would like to meet you and discuss this exciting role.

The Role in a Nutshell

While prior analytical professional services experience is a must, compensation-specific experience is not expected. Although every day will be different, Senior Associates will:

• Complete initial training in compensation projects, ranging from broad-based compensation issues to incentive design to statistical pay equity analysis.
• Contribute to compensation strategy projects, in which we are engaged by public and pre-IPO companies to recommend new broad-based incentive programs that support critical business objectives.
• Capture recommendations and analytics for external and internal audiences in superbly structured and clear PowerPoint presentations and Excel worksheets.
• Perform research using clients’ 10-K and proxy statements to form viewpoints on market compensation practices, including pay levels, incentive structures, corporate governance, disclosure, and equity dilution.
• Support statistical analyses on topics such as gender pay equity, either as part of a client’s proactive, internal strategy or in conjunction with litigation in which we are engaged as an expert.
• Analyze broad-based compensation benchmarking survey data to recommend employee pay levels in light of industry and peer practices.
• Develop detailed and dynamic models for equity dilution and share utilization in support of recommended compensation programs and levels of compensation by role.
• Depending on background (e.g., tax, valuation, or audit), contribute to compensation tax modeling, valuation, and accounting advisory engagements.

Our Culture and Method of Doing Business

We are:

• Zealous about exceptional client service and delighting every client, large or small.
• Lean and agile—we don’t have manager layers that get to sit back and just talk.
• Growth-oriented—both in welcoming new clients into the fold and seeing professional development in our outstanding colleagues.
• Feedback-heavy—because that’s how to unlock growth.
• Mentoring-rich—we’re not a competitive, eat-what-you-kill culture, and our consultants achieve professional growth via hands-on client experience and feedback from leaders.
• All about impact—our professionals love the opportunity to make an impact on clients, each other, and the long-run trajectory of the business.
• Not a 9-to-5 job—because all the above items just take time, even for very smart and efficient people.

About the HR Advisory Practice

The HR Advisory (HRA) practice within Equity Methods excels in providing analytical rigor and superior client service. Our goal of client delight means we are always looking for new ways to improve our current service offerings. This ranges from analyzing problems in new ways to using visualization and plain-English, user-friendly deliverables. Attention to detail, knack for polish, and receptiveness to feedback are a few traits that help HRA consultants succeed.

Competencies of the Successful Candidate

• Flexes and adapts to changing circumstances. We constantly face shifting priorities, challenging projects, and tight turnarounds. We try to bend to deliver to our clients during their greatest moments of need, which requires flexibility.
• Possesses exceptional written and verbal communication. Great client work product consists of rigorous analysis and highly polished materials, and we believe you can’t have one without the other. Attention to detail, strong writing skills, and clear communication are musts.
• Thrives on feedback. Our team is focused forward on improvement and creating excellence, never backward on blame, and we seek out feedback to become better versions of ourselves.
• Thrives in an ambiguity-rich environment. As a result of pushing new boundaries, we often find ourselves outside of our individual and collective comfort zones. This spells ambiguity, the need for research, and a desire to experiment iteratively toward the right answer—which some people love and others do not.
• Works autonomously but is comfortable in groups. Much of the in-the-weeds work of our engagements requires our consultants to perform excellent analysis individually before sharing, testing, and iterating with the team. This requires doing great work with little to no oversight as well as comfort considering, discussing, and implementing others’ viewpoints.
• Excels at data analysis and visualization. Many engagements involve some sort of modeling and analysis. We are known for drawing rich insights from data and communicating it in a plain-English, visualization-heavy way to our clients.

Qualifications & Requirements                                          

• 1 – 5 years of experience in a relevant or adjacent consulting field, including litigation support, economic or valuation consulting, tax, management/strategy consulting, or public accounting.
• Prior experience in compensation is not required.
• Strong Excel skills and the ability to design robust, insight-rich models.
• Above-average PowerPoint and presentation skills (organizing content clearly and professionally).
• Bachelors or Masters in a business discipline or one that relates to the role.
• Strong detail- and accuracy-orientation. Successful candidate must demonstrate attention-to-detail with regard to internal and external communication, creating and reviewing deliverables, and performing modeling analyses.
• Ability and willingness to think critically and solve “out-of-the-box” problems independently.
• Background check required.

More About Equity Methods

Equity Methods serves a diverse clientele from dozens of Fortune 500 firms to early-stage pre-IPO firms. We have served 40 Fortune 100 firms all the way to early-stage venture-backed organizations. Our clients span the entire United States, in addition to some in Canada, South America, and Europe. We offer a diverse array of services that solve mission-critical priorities within corporate accounting and human resources functions.

At our size of ~100 professionals and countless brand-name clients, we combine the best of a large professional services firm with the best of an entrepreneurial growth venture. The culture fosters excellence in client service, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement. We have a bias toward promoting from within and we celebrate the diverse strengths of our colleagues. We have consistently been rated a Top Company to Work for in Arizona.