Business Strategy Analyst

Full Job Description

The Amherst Group of companies comprise of leading real estate investment and advisory firms with a mission to transform the way real estate is owned, financed and managed. Amherst leverages its proprietary data, analytics, technology, and decades of experience to seek solutions for a fragmented, slow-to-evolve real estate ecosystem and to materially improve the experience for residents, buyers, sellers, communities, and investors. Today Amherst has over 1000 employees and $14.1 billion in assets under management.

Over the past decade, Amherst has scaled its platform to become one of the largest operators of single-family assets and has acquired, renovated, and leased more than 46,000 homes across 32 markets in the U.S. The firm delivers customized, stabilized cash-flowing portfolios of assets to its investors, wrapped in all the ongoing services required to manage, own, and finance the asset including property management, portfolio management, and a full capital markets team. In addition to its single-family rental platform, Amherst’s debt business pursues two distinct credit strategies in mortgage-backed securities and commercial real estate lending. Over its 25-year history, Amherst has developed a deep bench of research and technology talent, and leverages data and analytics at every stage in the asset lifecycle to improve operations and preserve long-term value for our investors and the more than 188,000 residents the firm has served.

The Amherst Group of companies comprise of leading real estate investment and advisory firms with a mission to transform the way real estate is owned, financed and managed. Amherst leverages its proprietary data, analytics, technology, and decades of experience to seek solutions for a fragmented, slow-to-evolve real estate ecosystem and to materially improve the experience for residents, buyers, sellers, communities, and investors. Today Amherst has over 900 employees and more than $10.9 billion in assets under management.

Over the past decade, Amherst has scaled its platform to become one of the largest operators of single-family assets and has acquired, renovated, and leased more than 40,000 homes across 28 markets in the U.S. The firm delivers customized, stabilized cash-flowing portfolios of assets to its investors, wrapped in all the ongoing services required to manage, own, and finance the asset including property management, portfolio management, and a full capital markets team. In addition to its single-family rental platform, Amherst’s debt business pursues two distinct credit strategies in mortgage-backed securities and commercial real estate lending. Over its 25-year history, Amherst has developed a deep bench of research and technology talent, and leverages data and analytics at every stage in the asset lifecycle to improve operations and preserve long-term value for our investors and the more than 165,000 residents the firm has served.

Opportunity:

The analyst, Business Strategy role in the Operate group at Amherst represents a unique opportunity to be exposed to and operate at the highest levels of a leading digital real estate company that’s already at scale, profitable, and growing quickly. The business has five distinct verticals – our Originate business, our Operate business, our Merchant Bank, our Investment Management business, and our Incubator. This role will support the Operate business and go deep into the heart of our property management’s operations. The position will be based in Austin.

Responsibilities

• Report directly to the VP of Business Strategy and support divisions within Operations
• Support cross-functional projects that require oversight and will drive future business operations.
• Analyze and evaluate the financial impact of ongoing and proposed strategic operating initiatives.
• Conduct research and support the establishment of business plans in coordination with strategy, research, and modeling groups.
• Prepare business updates, and drive follow-up and resolution for the specific projects and their impact on the company-wide priorities.
• Consolidate, synthesize, and communicate regular reporting on the projects that give insights and support to the leadership team.
• Conduct and lead small meetings with members in with various groups across the organization
• Analyze data and identify trends and key findings in both qualitative and quantitative data sets from various systems

Support ad-hoc analyses and projects, including automation of reporting from various internal software platforms, creation and/or maintenance of financial and operational reporting dashboards, and data visualizations.

Candidates will need to demonstrate essential capabilities:

• Executional excellence: You have the organizational skills, meticulous attention to detail, high sense of responsibility, and general skillset to take on a wide range of high-priority tasks in support of the Head of Real Estate Management’s projects. You are dependable and always deliver quality work.
• Executive-level communication and presentation skills: Your written (including presentation decks) and verbal communication are compelling and precise. You can quickly take complex concepts and communicate them briefly, simply, and persuasively. You’ve demonstrated the ability to communicate at executive levels of large companies or organizations.
• Structured problem solving: Strategic thinking, in particular the ability to break complex problems down into component parts. The ability to lead on and enjoy both strategic and tactical work is key.
• Analytical capability: You’re confident creating, scrutinizing, and improving everything from revenue models to KPI dashboards. You’ve repeatedly done the work to make sure complex business reporting data is accurate, but you’re also able to cut out the noise by identifying the most salient data points to inform decision-making.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate will have the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in business, with emphasis on Finance, Information Management, Math, or Business, etc., MBA preferred, but not required.
• 3+ years in management consulting, investment banking, business development or equivalent business experience.
• Familiarity with real estate private equity or real estate operations and real estate finance strongly preferred.
• Modeling experience, advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite including PowerPoint; quantitative experience in SQL/R/Python are desirable, but not required.
• Strong interpersonal and leadership skills, able to inspire and move others to effect change.
• Highly analytical and process-oriented; ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills, good attention to detail.
• Flexible and adaptable with excellent organization, time management, and prioritization skills; follow through with a sense of urgency.
• Highly self-motivated and results-focused, executes efficiently and effectively.

Additional capabilities that will help the best candidates stand out:

• Critical path thinking allowing for optimization of project timelines and cost/benefit analysis for project paths, as well as current and new business initiatives.
• Emotional intelligence and the ability to establish strong and trusting relationships with colleagues.
• Designing or leading organizational change management around new goals, priorities, team changes or projects.
• High initiative, self-starting capabilities; the demonstrated ability to identify and seize opportunities for impact in messy, uncertain contexts without direction or oversight.
• Facilitation skills – you design thoughtful meeting processes/agendas and are skilled at chairing or facilitating meetings or sessions that make progress on high-stakes discussions with senior stakeholders.

Our full-time employee benefits include:

• A competitive compensation package, annual bonus, 401k match

• Flexible PTO including 7 paid holidays, 1 floating holiday, and 1 volunteer day

• Employer-paid benefits (medical, dental, vision, health savings account)

• Professional career development and reimbursement

• Up to 16 weeks paid maternity leave; up to 4 weeks of paid parental leave

• Backup childcare offered through Bright Horizons

• Relaxed casual environment with virtual office events

Amherst is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, genetic information or veteran status, and encourage all applicants to apply.