Directorate-General 4, Corporate Services, strives to provide state-of-the-art working conditions for EPO staff. Within Corporate Services, VP 4 Office is a dynamic team that drives the organisation forward, playing a crucial role in ensuring that requests for decisions, strategic proposals, project briefs, ideas, recommendations, briefings and operational actions undergo strategic analysis and receive sound advice before being presented to the Vice‑President for review and action.

As part of our commitment to sustainability, the Office has developed SP2028, a strategy structured around five key drivers, including one focusing on financial sustainability. With this in mind, VP 4 Office is currently looking for a financial advisor to join its ranks. In this role, you will be responsible for centralising the oversight and co‑ordination of initiatives related to that driver, ensuring their effective and efficient implementation in close collaboration with different stakeholders and initiative owners.

Do you have what it takes? Then join us!  

With us you will:

• provide end-to-end dossier management for finance-related parts of SP2028 through active collaboration and a one-Office approach
• support management throughout the decision-making process with early alignment from the outset, and ensure a strategically aligned and harmonised approach for the implementation of decisions
• draft, analyse and assess critical subject‑matter and documentation (particularly for finance-related matters) and provide critical advice on assigned work packages; this includes providing strategic input to leverage the findings of the Office's financial studies and contributing to the evaluation and mitigation of financial risks
• prepare briefings, presentations, reports for the areas, dossiers and/or projects within your sphere of responsibility
• help steer the implementation of Driver 5-related projects and work packages
• support the co‑ordination of policy options and actions to monitor and improve the funding status of the Office's pension and social security liabilities

Apply if you have:

• a university degree, preferably in finance, accounting or economics 
• strong knowledge of financial and investment markets, financial instruments and portfolio management strategies
• excellent communication and interpersonal skills to effectively interact with colleagues and internal stakeholders
• a robust understanding of the Office's strategic direction and its priorities regarding securing its long-term financial sustainability
• strong resilience and the ability to work in a highly dynamic and volatile environment
• the ability to quickly grasp and analyse complex content, provide a critical assessment, translate it into succinct documentation and co‑ordinate related actions
• a high level of integrity in handling sensitive information and taking the need for confidentiality and utmost discretion to heart

Our minimum requirements for this post

• 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; alternatively, excellent knowledge (at least C1) of at least one official language (in such cases, the willingness to learn the missing language(s) and to reach level B2 within a set time frame would be required)
• Citizenship of one of the member states of the European Patent Organisation

Process:

Candidates are kindly asked to upload an updated CV and outline their motivation in the designated application field (character limit 4000). If so wished, the motivation letter can also be uploaded as a Word or pdf attachment under "Application document" in SuccessFactors. In this case, please indicate in the designated field "Please refer to attached motivation letter".

The successful candidate will be selected on the basis of qualifications, competencies, professional experience and language knowledge, supplemented as appropriate by interviews, tests and/or a personality questionnaire.

A reserve list may be constituted, should more candidates than required at this time be considered suitable following the selection procedure. Such reserve lists are valid for 18 months and reserve list candidates may be contacted, should a vacancy with substantially the same profile arise during that period.

More information on how we recruit can be found on our EPO jobs and careers site.

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Key information

Job group: 4

Grade: G7 to G10 (net (basic) monthly salary* for this vacancy: EUR 5 901 to 9 620, depending on experience and location) 

Duration of appointment: Five years

Career path: Technical 

Location: Office-wide

Application deadline: 5 June 2024

Interviews planned for: First half of June 2024

* after deduction of EPO-internal tax and before deduction of staff contributions to the social security and pension schemes.