Overview
The organization is seeking a tactical, collaborative Senior Strategic Finance Manager to report to the VP, Finance & Accounting. This role works closely with senior leaders to provide insights that drive growth, optimize resource allocation, shape cash and margin decisions, and enhance financial performance across the organization.
Success in this role requires strong analytical rigor, curiosity, creativity, and sound business judgment. Approximately one third of the role is dedicated to budgeting, forecasting, and month-end reporting activities as needed, with primary focus on strategic finance and decision support.
Responsibilities
Financial Modeling & Business Analysis
- Build and maintain a 3-statement financial model for budgeting, forecasting, cash flow management, scenario analysis, and net asset impacts
- Independently develop ROI analyses and cost-benefit frameworks that support prioritization decisions and track initiative lifecycle from investment through post-launch impact measurement
- Partner with senior leaders to deliver actionable financial insights to address key business challenges and evaluate investments
- Collaborate across the organization to evaluate deal economics, optimize margins, and improve efficiency
- Create executive-ready analyses, dashboards, and Board materials that translate complex financial information into decision-ready insights
Budget & Forecast Management
- Lead critical FP&A processes, including the annual budgeting process, recurring forecasts, month-end reporting, and preparation of financial reporting for senior leadership and Board presentations
- Improve and automate FP&A processes, systems, and reporting as the organization scales using modern tooling (including AI-enabled solutions) to improve speed and accuracy
- Advise senior leaders on resource allocation and strategic decisions; occasionally present at leadership meetings and support cross-functional workstreams
- Manage vendor renewal calendars to ensure no material contracts auto-renew without review
Special Projects
- Support the build-out of an internal procurement process, establishing a centralized function for spend management, contract reviews, vendor selection, and purchasing
- Own mission-critical initiatives, including an updated pricing strategy to optimize margins
Requirements
- 6–8 years of related work experience in strategic finance, FP&A, corporate development, management consulting, investment banking, private equity, accounting, or another discipline responsible for financial forecasts and analysis
- Ability to turn ambiguity into structured analysis and actionable recommendations
- Proven relationship-building across functions and ability to influence without formal authority
- Experience building sophisticated financial models from scratch (not only maintaining existing models)
- Naturally curious; asks thoughtful questions and is comfortable challenging assumptions using data and sound judgment
- Communicates complex financial concepts in ways non-finance leaders can use for informed decisions
- Comfortable solving complex problems across scenarios
- Balance confidence with humility; maintain a point of view while remaining open to new information and perspectives
- Tech-savvy and comfortable adopting new systems and tools
- Care about education and commitment to racial and economic equity in America’s public schools
- Experience with Adaptive Insights or another cloud-based financial planning software
- Comfortable with intermediate Excel/Google Sheets functions (pivot tables, lookup functions, graphs/tables)
Level Expectations
- Independently leads complex analytical work that influences organizational financial strategy and executive decision-making
- Owns sophisticated financial modeling efforts and develops recommendations with limited direction
- Regularly partners with senior leaders across the organization
- No direct people management responsibilities; expected to exercise independent judgment, influence cross-functional decisions through expertise and credibility, and raise the overall quality of strategic financial thinking
- Takes work nearly to completion independently, seeks input at key decision points, and communicates recommendations with clarity, confidence, and sound business judgment
Compensation & Benefits
- Hiring salary range: $90,000 - $110,000
- Hiring salary range for specific higher cost of labor locations (including New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C.): $100,000 - $120,000
- Annual performance-based raises for eligible employees
- Full-time benefits include:
- 25 paid vacation days per year
- 11 paid holidays
- Employer-paid individual and family health plan
- Matching 401(k) plan (up to 5% of base salary)
- Annual professional development stipend
- Casual and flexible work environment
Location
Flexible hybrid schedule with option to work from the organization’s NYC office, or fully remote from CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, MA, MD, MI, MN, NC, NJ, NY, OR, PA, TN, TX, VA, WA, or WI.
Candidates not in the NYC area should expect to travel to the NYC office on an as-needed basis, about 4–6 times per year. Work-related travel expenses are covered by the organization.
The organization participates in E-Verify and will provide the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization.
Application Notes
All messages from the hiring team come from an official email address associated with the organization’s domain; messages from other domains are not from the hiring team.