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Nift is a profitable, ~60-person company with $50M+ in annual revenue seeking its first Director of Strategic Finance. The role owns planning and forecasting end-to-end and rebuilds how finance operates—moving from spreadsheet-driven processes to automated, system-to-system workflows.
Key responsibilities:
**Planning & Forecasting (Priority 1):** Run the annual operating plan with departmental OpEx and headcount templates. Own the operating model covering revenue, gross profit, OpEx, headcount, EBITDA, working capital, and cash, plus a 3–5 year long-range plan. Reforecast on a regular cadence and conduct monthly budget-vs-actual reviews with department heads. Own short- and long-term cash flow forecasting including collections and payment timing. Build monthly reporting packages and Board materials with the Head of Finance.
**Finance Systems, Automation & Process (Priority 2):** Lead the transition from spreadsheet finance to automated workflows (e.g., connecting databases to invoicing platforms via API, automating partner payout calculations). Partner with an engineer to write requirements, define logic, validate numbers, and run user acceptance testing. Define general ledger structure for cost visibility by team, function, and initiative. Evaluate and select finance tools (planning platforms, etc.). Leverage AI for variance commentary, data validation, and recurring reporting.
**Analysis Driving Decisions (Priority 3):** Measure payback on sales investment by team in months. Build advertiser and partner cohort, retention, and spend-distribution analysis by segment. Turn open-ended questions into clear recommendations. Write your own SQL against production data (read access) and finance schema without waiting on a data team.
**First-Year Milestones:**
- First 90 days: Take ownership of the operating model and annual plan, run first monthly close review, deliver first reporting and Board packages.
- By month 6: Driver-based plan and rolling forecast used by leaders; predictable monthly close cadence with explained variances; at least one manual workflow automated.
- By month 12: Trusted cash forecasting, ledger structure answering "what does this team cost?" without manual rework, regular sales payback and cohort analysis, finance function running independently.
Nift is a data-driven, cash-flow-positive company with 731% growth over three years, backed by Spark Capital and Foundry (investors in Slack, Snap, Fitbit, Warby Parker, Wayfair, Twitter). The company reshapes customer discovery through thoughtful "thank-you" gifts for new customer acquisition.
This is a director role built for a strong senior manager or director who wants full ownership and headroom, not a large team to delegate to. You'll have an engineering partner, budget for tools, and a Head of Finance who wants to review your model, not build it.
**Requirements:**
- 7+ years in FP&A or strategic finance (investment banking or transaction advisory acceptable if you've since owned planning and forecasting in an operating company)
- Strong, hands-on SQL: you query, join, and reconcile messy data yourself; using AI to write queries is fine but doesn't replace knowing what the query should do
- Full ownership of a P&L's planning at a smaller company or for a division that ran like its own business; you've owned the whole model, not one line
- Mastery of the three statements and how income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow connect
- Track record of building something in finance that didn't exist before (process, model, reporting pipeline, or automation)
- Ability to turn analysis into clear recommendations for a CEO or Board
**Nice-to-haves:**
- Experience in performance marketing, adtech, martech, ecommerce, consumer, SaaS, or other data-heavy, variable-cost business
- Cohort, retention, LTV, and unit economics work
- Exposure to finance systems projects (invoicing, payables, planning tools, ERP rollout) including working with engineers and running UAT
- Board reporting or investor materials experience
**What doesn't matter:** degree or school attended.
**What this role is not:** accounting (accounting team runs the close, AP/AR, payroll, audit relationship); a deal job (company is profitable, not raising, little M&A); a role with a team on day one (you'll build and run the work yourself).
You'll thrive here if you see messy manual processes and want to fix them, prefer a blank page over a checklist, and are excited—not annoyed—that basics still need building. It's probably not a fit if you're used to directing a team and want to keep doing that, or see this title as a step sideways.
