SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE
ABOUT CFO’S DOMAIN:
CFO’s Domain is a Consulting & Recruiting firm serving CFOs and their stakeholders. Our search practice recruits and works with the most relevantly skilled and pedigreed professionals looking to excel in their careers.
THE OPPORTUNITY:
Our client is a fast-growing, PE-backed brand experience studio with a blue-chip client roster. They are at an inflection point, and the SVP of Finance is the person who keeps strategic planning, reporting, and controls in lockstep with that pace. This is not a maintenance role, it's a high-visibility seat for someone who wants to grow into the most senior finance position at a category-defining creative business.
The SVP of Finance will own the integrity of the financial function: the close, budget, and forecast cycles; leadership of the Controller and FP&A support; and the project-level economics like estimating, burn, utilization, and margin, that a project-based creative business needs to scale. Just as important, this leader translates the numbers into a story the CEO and Board can act on, ensuring leadership is never surprised.
We're looking for a hands-on finance operator, not a tower executive. This role is ideal for someone who understands how project-based creative businesses make money, brings PE-fluency and M&A instincts, and is ready to build as the company scales.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Serve as a senior finance partner to the CEO, executive leadership team, and Board, providing financial insight and recommendations that support strategic and operational decision-making.
- Lead the company’s budgeting, forecasting, and long-range planning processes, ensuring financial plans are grounded in operating assumptions and business realities.
- Oversee the Controller and FP&A resources, establishing clear ownership, accountability, performance expectations, and development priorities across the finance organization.
- Develop and maintain financial models supporting strategic initiatives, pricing decisions, new business opportunities, investments, and scenario analysis.
- Drive recurring financial performance analysis, including budget-to-actual results, forecast variances, revenue trends, operating expenses, profitability, and key business drivers.
- Improve visibility into project-level and portfolio-level economics, including estimating, project budgets, spend progression, resource requirements, utilization, and margin performance.
- Partner with operational and commercial leaders on pricing, project scoping, staffing, capacity planning, and resource allocation to support profitable growth.
- Establish stronger connections between headcount, staffing decisions, utilization, project activity, and overall financial performance.
- Oversee the month-end close and financial reporting process through the accounting leadership team, ensuring timely, accurate, and audit-ready results.
- Lead the annual audit and coordinate tax and other external financial reporting requirements across a multi-entity organization.
- Manage cash flow, liquidity, working capital, and other treasury-related priorities in support of ongoing operations and growth initiatives.
- Support lender-related requirements, including financial reporting, covenant monitoring, debt-related analysis, and ongoing stakeholder communication.
- Prepare and present clear financial reporting and analysis for executive leadership, the Board, ownership stakeholders, and financing partners.
- Identify opportunities to improve working capital, cash conversion, cost efficiency, and capital deployment.
- Support M&A and strategic partnership activity as needed, including financial modeling, diligence, transaction evaluation, and integration planning.
- Build greater financial accountability across the organization by helping non-finance leaders understand the economic implications of operational and commercial decisions.
- Drive improvements to finance systems, reporting tools, planning processes, workflows, and data infrastructure to reduce manual work and improve decision-making.
- Drive improvements to finance systems, reporting tools, planning processes, workflows, and data infrastructure to reduce manual work and improve decision-making.
- Build a high-performing, commercially oriented finance organization capable of supporting the company as it continues to scale.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration, or a related field required.
- 8–12+ years of progressive finance experience, including meaningful responsibility across FP&A, financial reporting, business finance, accounting oversight, or corporate finance.
- 3–5+ years of senior finance leadership experience with direct responsibility for managing and developing finance or accounting teams.
- Demonstrated experience overseeing both financial planning/analysis and accounting/reporting activities within a complex operating business.
- Strong experience leading annual budgets, rolling forecasts, financial modeling, variance analysis, management reporting, and strategic decision support.
- Experience in a project-based, professional services, agency, production, consulting, media, entertainment, creative services, or similarly utilization-driven business model strongly preferred.
- Strong understanding of project economics, including pricing, estimating, staffing, utilization, project profitability, and margin management.
- Strong technical finance foundation, including U.S. GAAP, financial reporting, internal controls, cash management, and working capital.
- Experience partnering directly with a CEO, executive leadership team, Board, lenders, or ownership stakeholders.
- Prior experience in a private equity-backed, leveraged, acquisitive, or similarly performance-driven environment preferred.
- Experience supporting lender reporting, covenant compliance, debt management, or other financing-related requirements preferred.
- Experience supporting M&A diligence, financial modeling, integration planning, or strategic transactions preferred.
- Experience improving or scaling finance processes, reporting infrastructure, systems, controls, and organizational capabilities.
- Experience working across multiple entities, currencies, business units, or international operations preferred.
- Strong executive communication and presentation skills, including the ability to translate financial information into clear business recommendations for non-finance stakeholders.
- Strong commercial judgment with the ability to connect financial results to pricing, capacity, resource allocation, project performance, and growth decisions.
- CPA, CFA, MBA, or similar advanced credential preferred but not required where compensated by relevant experience.
- Proactive, adaptable leadership style with the ability to create structure, improve existing processes, and operate effectively in a growing and evolving organization.
Pay: $275,000.00 - $325,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Application Question(s):
- Have you led finance at the corporate/hold-co level of an agency or creative business (not a single brand or division)?
- Are you comfortable in a hands-on role with a lean team and no large staff to delegate to?
- Can you commute to an office in lower Manhattan on a hybrid basis?
- Have you owned project-level margin tracking - estimating, burn, and utilization - in a project-based business?
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Manhattan, MT 59741
