Strategic Finance Lead

Granola; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Granola, an AI-powered notepad for teams, seeks its first Strategic Finance Lead to build the financial operating rhythm for the next growth stage. You will own core FP&A, forecasting, and strategic decision support, partnering with leaders across the company.

This hands-on role manages the company model, planning cadence, and performance insights, translating analytics into clear actions for growth and resource allocation in a high-growth tech environment.

Qualifications

• 5–8 years of experience across Strategic Finance, FP&A, Corporate Finance or similar roles.
• Experience owning financial models, forecasting and planning processes in a high-growth technology company.
• Strong financial modeling and analytical skills, with the ability to independently structure and solve ambiguous problems.
• Experience partnering directly with functional and executive leaders and translating analysis into clear recommendations.
• Strong understanding of SaaS business models and the operating metrics that drive growth and unit economics.
• A track record of taking ambiguous strategic questions through to structured analysis, clear conclusions and recommended actions.

Responsibilities

• Own our company model and forecasting. Build and maintain the financial model that connects revenue, headcount, operating expenses, gross margin and cash, and forecast accordingly.
• Lead company planning. Drive planning and forecasting cadence, translating operating plans into financial outcomes and informing resource allocation.
• Help leaders understand performance. Partner with functional leaders on budgets, forecasts and performance, turning insights into actions.
• Deepen our understanding of unit economics. Build a robust view of gross margin, CAC, retention and sales efficiency.
• Drive strategic analysis and decision-making. Build scenarios and frameworks to evaluate investments and headcount.
• Build the Strategic Finance foundation. Establish models, processes and cadences for finance as Granola scales.

Skills

Financial modeling

Analytical thinking

Business partnering

Communication

Tools

Excel

Job description

About Us

We're Team Granola

Granola is an AI-powered notepad for people in back-to-back meetings. What started as a better way to take notes has become a shared workspace that helps teams capture, organize, and act on what matters.

We're building a product people genuinely love and are fortunate to work with many of the world's most ambitious companies. As we continue to grow, we're looking for a Strategic Finance Lead to help build the financial operating rhythm that supports the next stage of the company.

About the Role

We're looking for our first Strategic Finance hire to help build the financial operating rhythm behind Granola's next stage of growth.

You'll help build the financial operating rhythm of the company, owning core financial planning, analysis and strategic decision support. You'll partner closely with leaders across the company to understand what's happening in the business, identify the drivers behind performance and help us make better decisions about where we invest. This is a highly hands-on role with significant ownership from day one.

What You'll Do

• Own our company model and forecasting. Build and maintain the financial model that connects revenue, headcount, operating expenses, gross margin and cash, and continuously improve our ability to forecast the business.

• Lead company planning. Drive our company planning and ongoing forecasting cadence, partnering with leaders across the business to translate operating plans into financial outcomes and inform resource allocation.

• Help leaders understand performance. Partner with functional leaders on budgets, forecasts and performance, digging into the underlying drivers and turning them into clear insights and actions.

• Deepen our understanding of unit economics. Build a robust view of the economics of our business, including gross margin, customer acquisition, retention and sales efficiency, and identify opportunities to improve them.

• Drive strategic analysis and decision-making. Build scenarios and frameworks to evaluate investments, pricing, headcount and other important company decisions.

• Build the Strategic Finance foundation. Help establish the models, processes and operating cadences that allow Finance to become an increasingly effective partner as Granola scales.

What We're Looking For

Background & Experience

• 5-8 years of experience across Strategic Finance, FP&A, Corporate Finance or similar roles.

• Experience owning financial models, forecasting and planning processes in a high-growth technology company.

• Strong financial modeling and analytical skills, with the ability to independently structure and solve ambiguous problems.

• Experience partnering directly with functional and executive leaders and translating analysis into clear recommendations.

• Strong understanding of SaaS business models and the operating metrics that drive growth and unit economics.

• A track record of taking ambiguous strategic questions through to structured analysis, clear conclusions and recommended actions.

Skills and traits

• Hands-on builder comfortable moving between detailed analysis and macro view of what matters most.

• Analytical and commercially minded problem solver who enjoys getting deep into the numbers while staying focused on what they mean for the business.

• Independent and low ego. You can take an ambiguous question, figure out how to approach it and drive the work through to a clear conclusion.

• Strong business partner and clear, concise communicator who builds trust across functions, challenges assumptions constructively and makes complicated analysis understandable.

About the Opportunity

We are living in the most exciting time for tool builders since Engelbart's demo in 1968 and we want to assemble the best crew to build this future together. Our compensation philosophy is to hire the best people in the market and pay them accordingly with salary, variable, and equity.

If what is written above speaks to you, whether you look like a fit on paper or not.

Compensation

$170k - $200k + equity and benefits!

Our compensation philosophy is to hire the best people in the market and pay them accordingly with salary, variable, and equity.