With almost 7 000 employees, the European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the largest public service institutions in Europe. Its headquarters are in Munich and it also has offices in Berlin, Brussels, The Hague and Vienna. The EPO was founded with the aim of strengthening co-operation on patents in Europe. Through the EPO's centralised patent granting procedure, inventors are able to obtain high-quality patent protection in up to 44 countries, covering a market of some 700 million people. The EPO is also the world's leading authority in patent information and patent searching.

In 2017, the EPO received over 165 000 patent applications and granted over 105 000 patents. Its free online patent database, Espacenet, contains more than 100 million technical documents from 100 countries, and its free neural machine translation service, Patent Translate, provides instant, high-quality translation in 32 languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian.

Principal Directorate 4.2 (Finance) is undertaking a major transformation programme towards becoming a business partner for the entire organisation. By optimising existing processes, technology and organisational matters, it aims to develop higher value‑added deliverables for the business and to build a robust financial culture across the entire Office. By streamlining and simplifying processes, it will deliver efficiency gains for the principal directorate (PD) and the organisation as a whole.

PD 4.2 is looking for a financial analyst to join its Budget Implementation and Compliance team. Reporting to the Head of Department Budget Implementation and Compliance, you will be responsible for reporting to the governing bodies on budget implementation, for compliance checks and for developing and deploying new models and tools to facilitate sound business decisions. You will perform financial and operational modelling of relevant projects within the Office, providing management with financial insight to inform the decision-making process. Acting as a business partner, you will advise the business units on financial matters, translating the key deliverables of projects into meaningful and measurable financial targets.

Your main responsibilities

• Reporting on budget implementation to the governing bodies of the Organisation
• Providing financial analyses, advice and expertise to projects managers and stakeholders to promote best practices for budget implementation
• Proposing improvement and monitoring measures to enhance operational compliance with the financial regulatory framework as a business partner for the operational and procurement units
• Supervising financial controls, compliance checks and financial terms of contracts, promoting a risk‑based approach
• Developing and implementing a compliance report for management, giving a risk assessment of Office expenditure and proposing corrective measures, where appropriate
• Analysing and communicating the financial and operational impact of major projects and initiatives
• Reporting to management on the progress of the EPO's main projects and initiatives from a financial standpoint
• Assisting and advising the business units in the area of financial modelling, budgeting and forecasting
• Setting financial goals and performing variance analysis for strategic projects and initiatives
• Conducting insightful ad hoc analyses to investigate ongoing or individual operational issues, including cost/benefit analyses
• Promoting data analysis capabilities within the department, including developing ad hoc tools based on VBA/SQL programming languages
• Deputising for the Head of Department Budget Implementation and Compliance

What we expect from you

• A university degree in finance or business administration
• At least five years of experience as a financial controller, business analyst or similar role, ideally in a large international organisation in the private or public sector
• Proficiency in the use of MS Excel and/or other analytical tools such as data gathering and analysis software, spreadsheets and databases
• Knowledge of VBA, SQL, R or another programming language for data analysis would be a clear advantage
• Experience in leading teams/projects
• Strong analytical and communication skills
• Ability to work independently and with others
• Ability to present results in a concise and clear manner
• Ability to impact operations and effect change without being confrontational

Your qualifications

• Diploma of completed studies at master's level or - in exceptional cases - equivalent professional experience.
• Generally, an excellent knowledge (at least C1) of one official language (English, French and German) and ability to understand the other two. In exceptional cases, excellent knowledge (at least C1) of one official language and working knowledge (at least B2) of another. In such cases, the willingness to learn the third language and to reach Level B2 within three years would be required.
• Citizenship of one of the member states of the European Patent Organisation.

Time frame

It is intended to hold the interviews in week 23 in Munich.

Application deadline: 08.05.2019

Job group: 4

Grade: G7 to G10 (net (basic) monthly salary* for this vacancy: EUR 5 685,84 to 8 052,18, depending on experience) Duration of appointment: five years Career path: Technical

Location: Munich

* after deduction of EPO internal tax and before deduction of staff contributions to the social‑security and pension schemes. The salary level depends on experience.

To foster gender diversity, EPO encourages applications from female candidates.

The EPO is an equal opportunities employer and supports workforce diversity as a signatory to the Diversity Charter (Charta der Vielfalt) since 2010.

All applications for vacant positions will be welcomed and considered on the professional merits of the applicant against the role profile for the position regardless of nationality, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, parental responsibilities, age, religion or belief.