Director, Strategic Finance & Operations

Mesh Connect; United States; Remote; USD 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Mesh Connect is seeking an accomplished FP&A leader to own the company’s numbers and operating agenda—from budget to board financials. You will lead forecasting, capital decisions and acquisitions, while driving an OKR-based cadence, data-backed calls, and revenue/finance system improvements with Claude AI and the data team.

You will build driver-based models, manage P&L flux, and present a unified metrics dictionary to executives, ensuring consistency across products and geographies.

Qualifications

• 8+ years combining strategy consulting, investment banking, private equity or FP&A
• Budget process run end to end with department leaders and board reporting
• Strong financial modeling
• Operating cadence or OKR process built and run cross-functionally
• Hands-on data work with AI/tools to pull, model and analyze data

Responsibilities

• Own the annual budget and monthly forecast across ten departments; rollout quarterly budget review calls.
• Build and maintain a driver-based operating model covering payment volume, take rates, subsidies, headcount and vendor spend.
• Own quarterly board financials and monthly management pack: revenue, gross margin, spend vs. budget, burn, runway and cash.
• Own monthly P&L flux review and assembly of the financial statement package with accounting.
• Lead bi-weekly business reviews with data-backed calls on performance and misses.
• Define and own the company’s metric definitions and payments metrics used by all leaders.
• Perform hands-on analysis behind metrics using Claude and AI tools; coordinate with platform data team.
• Lead the financial workstream on acquisitions: models, valuation, synergy and integration cases, due diligence.
• Lead capital allocation analysis: returns on new products, blueprints and buy vs. build decisions.
• Plan capital for licensed entities: net worth and EU capital headroom, flag funding needs early.
• Approve pricing exceptions outside guardrails.
• Build sales capacity and quota model with CRO as part of budget.

Skills

Financial leadership

Budgeting & forecasting

Data-driven decision making

Financial modeling

OKR process

AI tools (Claude)

Tools

Claude AI

Job description

Overview

You will own Mesh’s numbers and its operating agenda. You run the budget, forecast and board financials, lead the financial side of acquisitions and capital decisions, and drive the company’s operating cadence: OKRs, a business review every two weeks, and clear, data-backed calls on what is working and what isn’t. You lead the team that builds our revenue and finance systems.

We want someone who is all about the numbers and works directly in the data, brings structure, holds leaders to their commitments, and is comfortable challenging senior people directly.

What You’ll Do

• Own the annual budget and monthly forecast across ten departments; rollout quarterly budget review calls.

• Build and maintain a driver-based operating model: payment volume, take rates, contract minimums, subsidies, headcount and vendor spend.

• Own the quarterly board financials and monthly management pack: revenue, gross margin, spend vs. budget, burn, runway and cash.

• Own the monthly P&L flux review and commentary and assembly of the financial statement package with the accounting team.

• Run the business review in coordination with BizOps, monthly and the quarterly OKR reviews, track commitments and call out misses with data.

• Own the company’s metric definitions and the payments metrics we manage to, so every leader presents from the same numbers.

• Do the hands‑on analysis behind those metrics. Pull, model and interpret the data yourself using Claude and other AI tools, with the platform data team providing access and support.

• Run the financial workstream on acquisitions with Corporate Development: models, valuation, synergy and integration cases, DD, and coordination.

• Lead capital allocation analysis: returns on new products, corridors and incentives such as rate subsidies, and build vs. buy.

• Plan capital for licensed entities: project net worth and EU capital headroom and flag funding needs early.

• Approve pricing exceptions outside the agreed deal guardrails.

• Build the sales capacity and quota model with the CRO as part of the budget.

• Support org design and cross‑functional programs for the CFO and CEO.

• Lead the Manager of FinOps, RevOps & Finance Systems.

• Confirm budget availability on purchase orders above the approval threshold.

Metrics You’ll Own

• Volume: total payment volume by product, active transacting accounts, volume per account, customer concentration.

• Monetization: net revenue, take rate (actual vs. contracted), usage against minimum commitments, revenue per account.

• Unit economics: cost per transaction, subsidies and incentives in basis points, net take rate, contribution margin per customer.

• Retention: gross and net revenue and volume retention by cohort, logo churn, silent churn (live accounts down more than 50% from peak).

• Growth: new logos, time from signing to go‑live and to first transaction, ramp to committed volume, pipeline coverage, win rate, committed ARR vs. run‑rate revenue.

• Efficiency and cash: CAC payback, burn multiple, DSO, bad debt.

Who You Are

• 8+ years combining strategy consulting (Big Four strategy practice or similar), investment banking, private equity or FP&A, with at least 2–4 years operating in‑house at a fintech, payments or high‑growth company.

• A budget process you ran end to end with department leaders, and board‑level reporting you owned.

• Strong modeling, including M&A or investment models.

• An operating cadence or OKR process you built and ran across functions.

• Hands‑on with data and AI: uses Claude and similar tools to pull, model and analyze data and build reporting directly, since there is no analytics team to hand it to.

• The presence to challenge senior leaders with data and keep the relationship

Nice to have

• Crypto experience.

• Capital planning for regulated entities.

• Experience managing systems or data builders.

What success looks like

• 90 days: own the FY27 budget and run its first reforecast; metric dictionary agreed by the CFO, CRO and Product; business review running every two weeks on one set of numbers; next board financials delivered on time and tied to the books.

• 6 months: quarterly budget reviews with every department; OKRs set and reviewed quarterly; unit economics by product; diligence model template used on every deal.