Senior Manager / Director, Strategic Finance

Santa Barbara Management; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 160,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

401(k)

Parental leave

Unlimited vacation

Flexible hours

Chicago office

Job summary

Santa Barbara Management seeks a strategic finance professional to own analysis of client balance sheets and build asset allocation plans at our Chicago office. You will execute investment strategies, monitor performance, and deliver recommendations that optimize after-tax and after-fee outcomes for UHNW clients.

We value those who think in first principles, solve complex problems, and communicate clearly with clients and internal teams.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of high level financial services experience leadership experience, with a proven track record of delivering as an individual contributor and growth in your roles.
• Advanced financial modeling and Excel skills, with experience in complex financial structuring and optimization.
• Strong understanding of capital markets concepts built through participation as an investor or advisor.
• Demonstrated ability to design, document, and scale efficient operational processes with extreme attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Deeply analyze clients’ existing balance sheets, building expert level understanding.
• Build investment plan recommendations for family asset allocation.
• Identify proactive and creative ideas to improve investment returns and reduce tax and fee drag.
• Put investment plans into action, seeing implementation from start to finish.
• Monitor investments for ongoing adjustment and optimization.
• Report to SBM clients on performance, allocations, and future opportunities.
• Utilize your financial background to help clients through a wide range of novel financial planning and analysis projects.
• Use a first-principles approach to diving into new topics and creating frameworks for analyzing problems.

Skills

Financial services experience

Technical excellence

Capital markets

Process mastery

Tools

Excel

Job description

Companies and investment firms built today are scaling faster than at any time in history, but the founders and investors building the defining businesses of our era face a paradox: the more value they create, the faster the demands and complexity of their own financial lives compound. Santa Barbara Management was founded by a small group of accomplished business builders and investors who lived this problem first-hand and decided to solve it. To make this vision a reality, we have reimagined the family office experience from first principles, relentlessly questioning industry norms.

At Santa Barbara Management, we engineer wealth for exceptional builders and their families. Our innovative model has been painstakingly designed to deliver a fully-integrated, client-aligned solution that combines investments, tax, trusts and estates, financial operations, and strategic finance under one roof, within one team.

Today, we serve some of the most accomplished founders and investors of our time — and we're just getting started.

The Role

Santa Barbara Management’s strategic finance team works to deliver exceptional after-tax, after-fee investment and financial results to our clients. We work across clients’ entire balance sheets building and executing on asset allocation plans, tax-aware investment strategies, and non-investment financial projects.

Our strategic finance team is a small but high-output team of specialists delivering mission-critical advice to the world’s leading founders and investors. This role caters to creative financial problem solvers who want to take a core role in building an industry-defining business at Santa Barbara Management.

What You’ll Do

Own the Analysis

• Deeply analyze clients’ existing balance sheets, building expert level understanding.
• Build investment plan recommendations for family asset allocation.
• Identify proactive and creative ideas to improve investment returns and reduce tax and fee drag.

Execute and Optimize

• Put investment plans into action, seeing implementation from start to finish.
• Monitor investments for ongoing adjustment and optimization.
• Report to SBM clients on performance, allocations, and future opportunities.

Think in First Principles

• Utilize your financial background to help clients through a wide range of novel financial planning and analysis projects.
• Use a first-principles approach to diving into new topics and creating frameworks for analyzing problems.

Who You Are

The most successful members of our team are motivated by solving complex problems and delivering excellent client service. Our team integrates team members with strong financial backgrounds across private markets, public markets, and corporate strategic finance to deliver a unique perspective on wealth engineering for UHNW families.

We are looking for team members who live in the details and use that understanding to build strategic plans and surface creative ideas. You will be a good fit if you are an obsessive problem solver and can’t rest until you’ve cracked the problem to your satisfaction.

Finally, we are in building mode. We are scaling our team and our capabilities and looking for systems thinkers who are excited to test and apply AI tools to help make our team 10x more effective and efficient. You are someone who doesn’t wait for permission and can’t help but constantly improve how you and our team operates.

What We Look For

Essential Qualifications

• Financial Services Experience: 5+ years of high level financial services experience leadership experience, with a proven track record of delivering as an individual contributor and growth in your roles.
• Technical Excellence: Advanced financial modeling and Excel skills, with experience in complex financial structuring and optimization.
• Capital Markets: Strong understanding of capital markets concepts built through participation as an investor or advisor.
• Process Mastery: Demonstrated ability to design, document, and scale efficient operational processes with extreme attention to detail.

Cultural Alignment

• Tempo and Drive: You thrive in a high-energy, fast-paced environment and believe incremental progress creates momentum.
• Hospitality Mindset: You understand that we are nothing without our clients and are committed to delivering "Unbounded Client Delight."
• Empathy & EQ: Strong relationship-building skills with both clients and internal teams, with the ability to read between the lines.
• Optimism & Resilience: You maintain a "glass half full" mentality and are comfortable navigating ambiguity in a startup environment.
• Detail Orientation: You sweat the details because the details matter and you can’t do your job successfully without knowing them.
• Learners Mindset: There is always more to learn, and that excites you. You are a voracious consumer of information.

What We Offer

• - Opportunity to Build Something Different: We are reimagining a significant, under-innovated category of financial services. The people who join us now will help shape how we serve our clients and what this firm becomes.
• - Exceptional Colleagues: Join an ambitious and exceptionally talented team led by people who have built category-leading businesses before. The bar is high, and that's the point.
• - Meaningful Scope, Real Impact: SBM is growing quickly. There are no small roles, there's no entrenched hierarchy, and the opportunities for professional growth are significant.
• - A Culture That Takes Care of Its People: Competitive compensation, comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k), paid parental leave for all parents, unlimited paid vacation, and flexible hours.
• - The Conditions to Do Your Best Work: This role is based in our Chicago office. We work together in person 4 days a week because the best ideas and the strongest cultures are built in the same room.

Compensation at SBM reflects the unique background and experience each person brings to the role. The expected base salary range for this position is $160,000 to 200,000. Beyond base salary, you will be eligible for a discretionary annual bonus which, for high performers, can represent a substantial part of total compensation.

Santa Barbara Management is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any of the above characteristics. Santa Barbara Management is enrolled in E-Verify to confirm the identity and employment eligibility of all new employees.

We are not accepting candidate submissions from external recruiting firms or agencies for this role at this time.