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.
Job Description
Ares Management is seeking a Senior Associate to join the Real Assets Financial Planning & Analysis (“FP&A”) team, with primary responsibility for the Real Estate business. The Real Assets FP&A team is part of the firm’s larger Finance organization and partners closely with Real Assets business leaders, fund accounting, corporate accounting, business operations and global FP&A colleagues in Los Angeles, London and other regional offices.
The Senior Associate will play a hands-on role in the annual budget, monthly and quarterly forecast, and long-range planning processes for Real Assets. The candidate will build and maintain fund-level models and deliver clear, accurate reporting to senior management. The ideal candidate has a working understanding of real estate funds and management fee and incentive fee mechanics, and a strong aptitude for financial modeling, data and automation. This role requires a dynamic, detail-oriented professional who can operate with increasing independence in a fast-paced, growing environment.
Primary Functions and Essential Responsibilities
The Senior Associate will support the broader Real Assets FP&A team in partnering across the enterprise to provide accurate projections and insights to senior management.
Financial Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting
Support the annual budget, monthly and quarterly forecast, and long-range plan for the Real Assets business, including consolidation of inputs and preparation of the P&L
Build and maintain fund-level models for Real Estate funds and co-investment vehicles, forecasting FPAUM, management fees, other income and promote/incentive fees
Forecast and track general and administrative expenses at the vendor level, identifying cost-saving opportunities and partnering with business leaders on accountability
Incorporate quarterly projected fund models from Fund Accounting, and assumptions on capital raising, deployment, exits and fee-basis changes, into the forecast
Prepare scenario and sensitivity analyses and respond to ad hoc requests from senior management
Reporting & Analysis
Prepare variance analysis and commentary for actuals vs. forecast, budget and prior periods, with a focus on FPAUM, management fees, other income and promote
Produce executive-ready reporting packages, dashboards and presentations for senior leadership, including forecast calls and business reviews
Support preparation of materials for firm-wide consolidation, board and senior leadership reporting
Dive into underlying fund and deal-level data to explain drivers behind results and recommend actions
Business Partnership & Collaboration
Serve as a day-to-day FP&A contact for Real Assets investment professionals, business operations and regional finance leaders
Coordinate with Fund Accounting, Corporate Accounting, Investor Relations and Business Operations to gather, validate and reconcile key inputs on a timely basis
Build working knowledge of new fund structures, fee terms and revenue streams, and translate this into forecast assumptions
Collaborate with the global FP&A team to align methodologies and ensure consistency across regions and segments
Process, Systems & Automation
Maintain and improve financial models, dashboards and planning tools for accuracy, consistency and scalability (e.g., OneStream, Anaplan, SQL, Power BI)
Clean, structure and consolidate data from multiple sources into repeatable…