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Celonis is seeking a Lead Finance Business Partner to serve as a strategic financial advisor to the Services and Value Engineering organizations. Reporting to the VP of GTM Finance, you will own financial modeling, delivery economics, and operational metrics that drive services gross margin, utilization, and value-selling efficiency.
You will operate as a strategic financial co-pilot to Services and Value Engineering leadership, moving beyond traditional FP&A to provide actionable insights and advisory support. Key responsibilities include:
**Strategic Financial Partnership:**
- Serve as the primary financial advisor to Services and Value Engineering leadership
- Own gross margin modeling and identify levers to optimize delivery costs without sacrificing customer satisfaction
- Evaluate financial impact and ROI of headcount additions, tools, and strategic initiatives (e.g., insourcing vs. subcontracting, scaling VE coverage models)
**Planning, Forecasting & Capacity Modeling:**
- Partner with leadership to challenge and optimize capacity and utilization models, stress-testing assumptions and identifying efficiency levers
- Lead annual budgeting and monthly forecasting cycles for headcount, program spend, and variable compensation
- Forecast professional services revenue recognition based on project milestones, backlog, and book-to-burn ratios
**SaaS Metrics & Operational Analytics:**
- Define, track, and analyze critical operational and financial KPIs
- Establish margin and utilization review cadences with leadership
- Build visibility into delivery costs and margin leakage through subcontractor spend governance
**First-Year Success Milestones:**
- First 90 days: Establish trust with GTM leaders, audit current capacity models, own monthly variance reporting
- First 6 months: Stand up subcontractor spend and PO-governance model; establish margin/utilization review cadence
- First year: Co-pilot annual planning process and drive measurable improvement in Services gross margins
You will translate complex financial data into actionable operational strategies for non-finance leaders, and conversely, translate operational realities into financial impacts for the CFO. Success requires the ability to influence senior executives constructively, navigate ambiguity in a fast-paced environment, and communicate complex data through compelling executive narratives.
**Requirements:**
- 8+ years of experience in FP&A, corporate finance, or strategic finance
- At least 5 years specifically supporting Services organizations at a B2B SaaS or technology company
- 5+ years of experience working with executive leadership, aligning operational execution with financial impacts
- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a quantitative field (MBA or CFA is a plus)
- Deep understanding of SaaS unit economics and revenue recognition rules
- Elite Excel and financial modeling skills; ability to build complex, dynamic capacity and utilization models from scratch
- Experience with enterprise tools such as Pigment, Salesforce, and Workday
- Proven ability to challenge senior executives constructively and back up recommendations with data
- Exceptional communication and storytelling skills; ability to distill large data sets into executive summaries
