Ben Hejhal Email & Phone Number

Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

• Lead Global team that provides financial decision support and analytics for ColumbiaThreadneedle Investment’s (CTI) North America Distribution organization.
• Partner closely with Product, Distribution, and Marketing business units to generate actionable insights, provide transparency, and influence leadership to drive alignment for Intermediary and Institutional channels
• Lead expense budgeting, forecasting and reporting including variance analysis, data-based insights to business leaders for all North America business units for informed decision making and expense discipline of $150M+.
• Collaborate closely with North America retail distribution sales leaders to establish driver-based rolling sales forecasts and annual plan of $50B+ gross sales to provide insight into future business results for senior.
• Prepare and present monthly results and key findings to executive leadership of Ameriprise and senior leadership of ColumbiaThreadneedle Investments; assist with the quarterly earnings release for various metrics
• Develop ad hoc analyses and reporting to proactively anticipate leadership needs by providing subject matter expertise on drivers of expense and sales results

• Provided end to end support for US Distribution and leadership team for expense budgeting and sales analytics; managed overall budget of $140M+ and sales for $50B+
• Served as primary finance contact for multiple business units providing guidance and analytics for strategic growth initiatives targeting opportunities for sales growth at the territory level
• Owned all of North America metrics including rolling forecasts, annual plan, internally and externally reported results as well as presenting to senior leadership
• Led team of three analysts to analyze and synthesize trends in data/results to provide the story to executive leadership and business partners

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

• Led two analysts supporting the global ColumbiaThreadneedle Investments (CTI) FP&A function by partnering with the broader finance team that supports individual business units
• Owned North America regional model to formulate monthly forecasts and annual plans including variance analysis against actual results
• Developed global forecasting and plan materials for executive leadership working cross-functionally with EMEA and APAC FP&A team for regional inputs
• Enhanced global consistency and efficiency of FP&A processes and reporting by building global FP&A model projecting $3B+ in revenues and $2B+ in expenses for rolling forecasts and annual plan processes to equip.
• Built and executed the long range plan model to provide actionable insights to executive leadership for strategic growth
• Completed ad hoc forecast and analysis requests producing and presenting materials to senior finance and business leadership

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

• Owned North America regional forecasting model of $2B+ in revenue and $600M+ in pre-tax income providing analytics and sensitivity analyses for senior leaders
• Prepared and communicated global forecast and plan materials to senior leadership collaborating cross-functionally with the EMEA and APAC regional teams for inputs
• Developed ad hoc reporting and analyses for executive leadership to better understand drivers of results and impact to forward-looking periods

• Analyst in the Financial Leadership Development Program with Ameriprise, a two year training period with three rotations:
• Business Planning and Analysis
• Asset Management
• Corporate Tax

Update client portfolios by allocating their assets into the eight asset classes recognized by the Capital Wealth Advisory Group in order to better understand how their money is invested. Portfolio review is implemented afterwards dependent on client visits and the date of the last review to guarantee their money is invested in the most successful way.