Strategic Finance & Business Operations Lead

About the role

This position is the foundational finance and operations role at Alma, designed for a practitioner who wants to own the entire financial and operational lifecycle of a growing startup. The successful candidate will be responsible for building the financial infrastructure and operational backbone that allow the company to scale with clarity and discipline. You will serve as the primary analyst, builder, and owner of all financial models, reporting, and internal systems, ensuring that data drives decision-making rather than intuition. This is a role that requires equal parts deep accounting rigor and broad operational problem-solving, where you fix immediate fires while preventing future ones. You will be the main point of contact for investors, board members, and internal stakeholders regarding the company's financial health and operational integrity. The position demands comfort with ambiguity and the ability to translate high-level strategy into concrete, executable operational steps. You will be expected to challenge the status quo, identify inefficiencies, and design durable processes that outlast your tenure in this role.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Build and maintain Alma's end-to-end financial model, serving as the central analytical engine for all strategic decisions.
• Own and execute the monthly close process in partnership with external accountants, ensuring timely reconciliation and the delivery of leadership-ready insights within days.
• Drive the creation of rolling forecasts and cash management strategies, providing early warning on runway and budget variance issues.
• Establish and own unit economics at the case and client level, providing clear visibility into margin generation and erosion across the business.
• Manage headcount planning and the hiring ledger, aligning workforce growth with financial capacity and operational needs.
• Prepare monthly investor updates and quarterly board reports alongside the CEO, acting as the subject matter expert on all financial data.
• Partner with the CEO on fundraising activities, including building the data room, owning diligence workstreams, and answering detailed financial questions in meetings.
• Model and analyze pricing strategies, discounting, and deal structures to optimize for quality and margin retention.
• Pressure-test sales compensation and commission plans, modeling the financial impact of changes before implementation.
• Conduct build versus buy versus outsource analyses to guide decisions on automation, staffing, and specialization.
• Own internal and legal operations, identifying broken or duplicated processes and designing efficient workflows for resolution.
• Partner with the Head of Legal and Head of Product to define which activities should be formalized as processes, automated, or retired.
• Serve as the primary connector between legal, sales, and client success teams, ensuring accountability for cross-functional workflows.
• Create and enforce spend and approval policies, reducing ad-hoc requests and empowering teams with clear rules.
• Oversee AR/AP oversight and coordinate with outsourced finance specialists for bookkeeping, IOLTA reconciliation, and audit support.
• Design the company's reporting cadence, dashboards, and metric definitions to ensure alignment across the organization.
• Write playbooks and standard operating procedures so that operational knowledge is systematized and not dependent on individual memory.
• Lead vendor and tooling consolidation initiatives, driving cost optimization and procurement best practices.
• Participate in office and real estate decisions, conducting market benchmarking and supporting strategic occupancy choices.
• Own and improve employee onboarding and offboarding operations to ensure a consistent and compliant employee experience.

Requirements

• You have 1-3 years of investment banking experience, or a combination of banking and consulting that demonstrates genuine financial acumen.
• You have already spent time in finance or operations at an early-stage startup and can articulate why you are drawn to this context.
• You are highly proficient in Excel and capable of building a three-statement financial model from scratch.
• You can communicate complex financial models to non-financial stakeholders in a clear and accessible manner.
• You possess strong judgment around money and can evaluate the reasonableness of budget requests and translate those assessments into policy.
• You prefer breadth over depth and are excited to operate across finance, operations, and special projects.
• You are comfortable owning ambiguous problems and building systems where none currently exist.
• You are meticulous, reliable, and able to manage multiple high-priority initiatives simultaneously.

Practical notes

• Hours: Full-time

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