Role: Strategic Finance Lead

Location: NYC

Our client is a globally recognized entrepreneur, author, and leadership thinker operating at the intersection of business, personal mastery, and long-term legacy. Their work spans founders, CEOs, investors, creatives, and global institutions.

Position Overview:

This is a build role inside a business that has never had one. The organization behind one of the world's most recognized leadership brands generates approximately $10M in annual revenue across publishing royalties, keynote speaking, digital courses, executive coaching, and equity-based mentorship. It operates across five corporate entities spanning four international jurisdictions. It has no unified P&L, no integrated financial systems, and no dedicated finance function. That changes now.

The Strategic Finance Lead is the first finance hire in the organization's history. You will build the function from scratch: integrate dispersed financial infrastructure across entities, establish a unified reporting picture, stand up an operating budget, and become the financial operating partner to the Head of Strategy and Operations as the business enters a deliberate three-year growth phase. This role does not inherit a department. It creates one.

Key Responsibilities:

• Financial Infrastructure
• Audit existing financial systems across all five corporate entities and map the complete income and cash flow picture for the first time
• Integrate dispersed financial tracking into a unified reporting structure with a clear, accurate P&L
• Build a driver-based operating budget and financial model that reflects the actual levers of the business
• Establish monthly and quarterly financial reporting cadences that give leadership real visibility into performance
• Accounting and Controls
• Own the accounting function end to end, including day-to-day bookkeeping oversight, month-end close, and financial statement accuracy
• Identify and resolve gaps in financial controls across entities, with a particular focus on intercompany flows and jurisdictional compliance
• Manage relationships with external accounting resources and ensure alignment across all entities
• Tax and Legal Coordination
• Coordinate with existing tax advisors across each entity and assess whether current relationships are appropriately structured for the business
• Develop a recommendation on tax advisor consolidation versus best-of-breed by jurisdiction, and execute on that structure
• Partner with legal resources on entity structuring decisions, including the incorporation of a new digital platform subsidiary
• Vendor and Financial Relationships
• Own all finance vendor relationships including accounting firms, tax advisors, banking, and financial software
• Evaluate and rationalize the existing vendor landscape as part of the broader systems audit
• Identify and implement the right financial tools and software stack for a business at this scale and complexity
• Strategic Partnership
• Serve as the primary financial thought partner to the Head of Strategy and Operations on capital deployment, cost structure, and investment prioritization
• Build the financial model that underpins the three-year strategic plan and supports ongoing business decisions
• Contribute to board-level and founder-facing financial narrative when required

What the First 90 Days Look Like:

The first 30 days are diagnostic. You will map the full financial picture across all five entities, assess the current state of each accounting relationship, and identify every gap in reporting, controls, and systems integration. By the end of month one, you know where everything is and where the problems are.

The next 30 days are architectural. The systems audit is complete. You have a prioritized integration roadmap. The operating budget framework is in progress and the first version of a unified P&L exists. Tax advisor coordination is underway and you have a recommendation on structure.

By day 90, a unified P&L is live, an operating budget has been delivered, the systems integration roadmap is finalized and execution is in motion. The finance function exists where before there was none.

Who You Are:

You came up through consulting. You have the rigor, the multi-entity exposure, and the ability to operate across complex financial environments because you have done it before. You also made a deliberate move into a high-growth or founder-led business at some point, and that experience changed how you think. You do not just build models. You understand the operating decisions the models are supposed to inform.

You are a CPA or hold an equivalent credential. You have worked inside businesses with international holding structures and you are not rattled by jurisdictional complexity. You know what good financial controls look like because you have installed them. You think in systems and you are honest about what you do not know.

You are energized by the build, not put off by it. The right candidate for this role looks at the gap between where the financial infrastructure is today and where it needs to be in 12 months and sees a career-defining opportunity, not a remediation project.

Qualifications:

• CPA preferred; equivalent credential or experience considered for candidates with strong international multi-entity backgrounds
• 5 to 10 years of experience spanning consulting, advisory, or finance roles with direct exposure to complex entity structures across multiple jurisdictions
• Demonstrated experience building or rebuilding a finance function inside a founder-led, high-growth, or entrepreneurial environment
• Strong financial modeling skills with a clear operator mindset: models exist to inform decisions, not to demonstrate technical sophistication
• Experience managing accounting functions end to end, not just owning the strategic layer above them
• Familiarity with international tax structures and the ability to coordinate across advisors in multiple jurisdictions
• Track record of standing up financial systems, controls, and reporting infrastructure rather than inheriting them
• NYC-based; this role operates in person two to three days per week

What they offer:

• Base salary: $175k - $220k depending on experience
• Performance-based bonus
• Full benefits including medical, dental, vision, and 401k with company match
• Exposure to elite founders, leaders, and institutions

Why this Role:

The business this person joins is not finished. It is being built. There is a three-year plan with real capital behind it, a founder with global reach and a network of Fortune 100 CEOs, and a digital platform being built toward a hard January 2027 launch deadline. The finance function does not support the strategy. It makes the strategy executable. That is the job.

Interested?

If you’re reading this thinking “this is exactly me”, please DM me on LinkedIn!🔗