Our Company Background & Culture UPP is the first pension plan of its kind in Ontario’s university sector, proudly serving over 41,000 members across five universities and fourteen sector organizations. Our purpose is to bring greater retirement peace of mind to the university sector by investing with integrity and serving members with care. As a sector-wide plan designed for growth, our doors are open to all Ontario universities.

Together, we’re a team of progressive thinkers and agile doers operating within a fast-paced culture of collaboration and respect. We believe in bringing smart and capable people together to create, solve, and grow with a clear shared vision and values of integrity, inclusivity, ingenuity, and impact. Our culture is intentionally welcoming and purposefully rooted in equity, diversity, inclusion, and reconciliation (EDI&R). We believe diverse teams, perspectives, and lived experiences contribute to better decisions and a better workplace.

As a pension plan, UPP approaches investing through a long-term lens to generate and safeguard value. Our commitment to investing responsibly accounts for material risks that impact our investment portfolio to generate sufficient risk-adjusted returns to meet the pension needs of our members.

Join us in building a bright future for our members, our organization, and each other.

THE ROLE UPP is seeking an experienced, goal-oriented, and friendly Associate Director, Financial Controls and Reporting (12-month contract) who excels at rolling up their sleeves and delivering. Reporting to the Director, Financial Reporting, this is an exceptional opportunity for someone with a breadth of experience looking to apply their knowledge and expertise to our organization. We’re a fast-growing organization and we’re excited for the future incumbent in this position to join our team, play a critical role in our continued evolution, and positively enhance the UPP plan member, employee, candidate, and visitor experience! This dynamic role will provide opportunities to engage with senior leaders, consultants and the external parties including the auditor and peer pension organizations.

This role is based in downtown Toronto under a hybrid work policy, allowing employees the flexibility to work remotely and in-office (two days per week in-office).

Key Responsibilities The Associate Director, Financial Controls and Reporting will have responsibility for but not limited to the following:

Financial Controls

• Design the internal controls over financial reporting understanding the flow of information and key controls including compensating controls (ICFR)
• Address any control deficiencies identified internal or by the External Auditor and develop remediation plans

External Reporting

• Review pension plan financial statements – ensuring compliance with latest accounting pronouncements
• Primary external audit liaison and managing audit requests, ensuring audit is completed on time and within budget.
• Preparation of annual financial statements for special purpose entities
• Review month-end accounting entries for special purpose entities, and maintain an investment tracker
• Support the tax team by preparing support for the special purpose entity income tax and indirect tax filings
• Assess new accounting standards and document their impact on the financial statements and inform the operational accounting team of how to account for changes. Prepare formal responses to relevant accounting bodies when accounting exposure drafts are released for public comment.
• Perform detailed data verification across all financial metrics within the annual report, ensuring consistency with the audited financial statements.
• Review monthly output from the datahub and business intelligence tool and propose updates as necessary to ensure financial statement notes are accurate and complete.
• Responsible for the preparation of certain annual report appendices and website disclosures.
• Propose updates to the datahub as required to ensure that new financial investments are properly accounted for and update the business intelligence tool to reflect the updates to the financial statement notes. Perform UAT on any maintenance or logic updates and sign-off for production environment.
• Provide support with sustainability reporting in accordance with S1 and S2 standards, including securing limited assurance on carbon footprinting.
• Develop and present results, observations, and recommendations to stakeholders and management, including formal presentations that support your analysis.
• Benchmarking analysis and co-ordinate with peer pension network.
• Assess insurance policies and provide recommendations for suitable coverage.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, commerce, or business administration
• Professional accounting designation (e.g., Chartered Professional Accountant, Certified Public Accountant)
• 10+ years of experience preferably gained at a public accounting firm or Canadian pension plan
• Prior experience with IFRS financial statement preparation and external audit.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint user.
• Beginner SQL experience is an advantage.
• Excellent writing skills to synthesize analysis and insights for external publications.
• Demonstrated success working in a high energy and hands-on organization,
• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects concurrently.

LIFE AT UPP Do work that matters . We are duty-bound to serve our members’ interests, and it’s a responsibility we don’t take lightly. That’s why we’ve ingrained sustainability in our work from day one—to ensure our members have a resilient future to retire into, both today and for generations to come.

Stronger together . Collaboration is how UPP was born, and it’s how we work with each other and our partners day in, day out. No one at UPP is just a number (even if they are excellent at math) and every win is a shared win.

Grow every day . You’ll have the opportunity to work on unique, once-in-a-career projects that maximize your skill set and probably teach you some new ones—at any stage in your career.

Benefits Prioritize wellness . At UPP, wellness takes many forms. Ultimately, it’s about ensuring our people are cared for in the ways that matter to them. Check out some highlights of our inclusive employee-focused benefits program including:

• Defined benefit pension plan
• Flexible hybrid work model
• Work from abroad up to eight weeks/year
• Comprehensive group benefits including medical, dental, vision etc.
• Extended paramedical and mental health service coverage
• Health care and lifestyle spending accounts
• Fertility treatments, paid parental leave, and gender affirmation coverage
• Education Assistance program

UPP enthusiastically welcomes applications from all qualified applicants and especially invites people with lived experience as an Indigenous person, a person with a disability or as a member of another Human Rights Code protected group that faces barriers to employment to apply. Our goal is to create a barrier-free experience for every candidate throughout the recruitment process, so if you require accommodation at any point during the process, please let us know so that we can make the appropriate arrangements. It would be our honor to work with you to adapt our processes to ensure that you can meaningfully participate. UPP respects your privacy. For information on how UPP handles the personal information you provide during the application process, please see our Job Applicant Privacy Statement.