[Remote] Director of Strategic Finance

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Nift is hiring its first Director of Strategic Finance to own end-to-end planning and forecasting and modernize finance operations. The role builds operating and cash flow models, automates finance workflows, and delivers analysis and reporting to support business and Board decisions.

Responsibilities

• Run the annual operating plan. Build the departmental OpEx and headcount templates, walk each leader through them, and turn their inputs into one driver-based plan
• Own the operating model: revenue, gross profit, OpEx, headcount, EBITDA, working capital, and cash, plus a 3 to 5-year long-range plan
• Reforecast on a regular cadence and run monthly budget-vs-actual reviews with department heads, so we know where every team is pacing before the quarter ends
• Own short- and long-term cash flow forecasting, including collections and payment timing
• Build the monthly reporting package and the Board materials with the Head of Finance. When the Board asks why R&D spend is under plan, you have the answer and the story behind it (for example, hires landing later than planned)
• Lead the move from spreadsheet-driven finance operations to automated, system-to-system workflows. Current examples: connecting our database to our invoicing platform via API, and automating partner payout calculations into payables
• Partner with an engineer on the product team: write the requirements, define the logic, check the numbers, and run user acceptance testing until it works the way finance needs it to
• Define how the general ledger should be structured so leadership gets the cost visibility it needs (by team, function, and initiative, not just broad class), then work with accounting on the cleanup and on keeping new entries coded correctly
• Evaluate and select finance tools, such as a planning platform, where they earn their keep
• Use AI where it actually saves time: variance commentary, data validation, recurring reporting
• Measure payback on our sales investment by team (enterprise and mid-market) in months, not adjectives
• Build advertiser and partner cohort, retention, and spend-distribution analysis by segment
• Turn open-ended questions into a clear point of view. "Is this campaign working?" "Model this new business line." "Show investors our partners are sticky." You decide the right methodology (for example, when a short pilot should be excluded from retention), document it, and tell the story the data supports
• Write your own SQL against our production data (read access) and your own finance schema. No waiting on a data team for a pull

Skills

• 7+ years in FP&A or strategic finance
• Strong, hands-on SQL. You query, join, and reconcile messy data yourself. Using AI to write queries is great; it doesn't replace knowing what the query should do
• Full ownership of a P&L's planning, either at a smaller company or for a division that ran like its own business. You've owned the whole model, not one line of it
• Mastery of the three statements and how the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow connect
• A track record of building something in finance that didn't exist before: a process, a model, a reporting pipeline, or an automation
• The ability to turn analysis into a clear recommendation for a CEO or a Board
• Investment banking or transaction advisory works too, as long as you've since owned planning and forecasting in an operating company
• Experience in performance marketing, adtech, martech, ecommerce, consumer, SaaS, or another data-heavy, variable-cost business
• Cohort, retention, LTV, and unit economics work
• Exposure to finance systems projects: invoicing, payables, planning tools, or an ERP rollout, including working with engineers and running UAT
• Board reporting or investor materials

Company Overview

Company H1B Sponsorship