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VP, Strategic Finance & Business Operations

AI Summary
Updater is seeking a senior finance leader to build and lead its Strategic Finance and Business Operations function, reporting directly to the CFO. The role owns planning, forecasting, scenario analysis, capital allocation, KPI architecture, executive dashboards, and company operating cadences. It also leads high-priority cross-functional initiatives across go-to-market, product, operations, data, and finance. The successful candidate will combine sophisticated financial modeling with practical operating judgment in a lean, high-growth technology environment. This is a hands-on player-coach role focused on scaling durable systems and decision-making infrastructure toward substantial revenue growth.
Remote from
USA
Salary
USD 260k–300k / yr
Employment
Full Time
Experience
Director
Published
Apply before
12 Dec 2026
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28
Application actions
2
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Opportunity details

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Updater is building a category-defining commerce platform with the ambition to become one of the world’s most important commerce infrastructure companies. We’re looking for an exceptional leader to build the company’s Strategic Finance and Business Operations function and help architect the next stage of growth. Reporting to the CFO, this person will sit at the intersection of finance, strategy, data, and execution, owning the financial and operating architecture required to help scale the company toward $1B+ in revenue and beyond.

You will own the company’s forward-looking financial engine, performance-management system, and a portfolio of its highest-priority cross-functional initiatives. You’ll help determine where we invest, what we expect in return, how we measure whether it’s working, and what we do when reality differs from the plan. You’ll inherit a small, high-caliber team and be expected to build a world-class function without unnecessary bureaucracy, combining sophisticated thinking with a highly hands-on, capital-efficient approach.

The mandate is simple: help the company make better decisions, allocate resources more intelligently, and turn strategy into measurable results.

What You’ll Own

Strategic Finance, Planning & Capital Allocation

  • Own the company’s financial planning architecture, including annual planning, rolling forecasts, long-range planning, and scenario analysis.
  • Build and maintain a driver-based financial model that connects operating activities, unit economics, strategic priorities, and resource allocation to long-term financial outcomes and enterprise value.
  • Partner with the CFO and executive team on capital allocation, helping determine where the next dollar, hire, or hour of organizational capacity should go.
  • Develop rigorous business cases for major investments, new products, partnerships, pricing changes, commercial structures, and strategic initiatives.
  • Translate financial and operating performance into concise executive and Board-level narratives: what happened, why it happened, what matters, and what we should do about it.

Company Performance Management

  • Architect and own the company’s KPI and OKR measuring frameworks, with clear leading and lagging indicators tied to the financial plan and strategic priorities.
  • Partner closely with Data leadership to establish a trusted, company-wide source of truth for the metrics that matter.
  • Build and maintain executive dashboards that translate complexity into clarity and make business performance immediately understandable.
  • Run the company’s operating cadence, including monthly business reviews, quarterly planning, forecast reviews, and performance deep dives.
  • Turn variance analysis into action by identifying root causes, establishing accountability, and ensuring corrective actions actually happen.
  • Continuously improve how the company sets targets, measures progress, and holds itself accountable for results.

Business Operations & Cross-Functional Execution

  • Lead cross-functional initiatives spanning GTM, Product, Operations, Data, and Finance, from initial problem definition and analysis through implementation and durable operating process.
  • Develop the analytical and operating frameworks required to evaluate growth opportunities, pricing, partner economics, unit economics, organizational productivity, and resource allocation.
  • Partner with the CFO and CRO on commercial planning, incentive design, capacity allocation, compensation structures, and the economics of major customer and partner decisions.
  • Identify areas where organizational complexity, unclear ownership, poor data, or broken processes are preventing execution, and fix them.
  • Build scalable systems rather than one-time analyses: when a problem matters repeatedly, establish the process, tooling, ownership, and metrics required to solve it permanently.

Build for Scale Without Building Bureaucracy

  • Design the financial and operating infrastructure required to scale the company to $1B+ in revenue while keeping the organization lean, fast, and capital-efficient.
  • Understand what world-class looks like at scale, while exercising strong judgment about what the company needs now versus later.
  • Build lightweight, durable systems before adding headcount or complexity.
  • Use automation, AI, existing tools, and better processes aggressively before defaulting to new systems or larger teams.
  • Continuously evaluate organizational leverage: where another person or system creates meaningful enterprise value—and where greater rigor, automation, or clearer ownership is the better answer.
  • Develop existing team members while selectively adding talent where additional capability creates meaningful leverage.

Requirements

  • 10+ years of exceptional performance across strategic finance, finance & strategy, FP&A, business operations, investment banking, private equity, consulting, or similarly rigorous analytical and operating environments.
  • A clear trajectory of increasing responsibility. We care less about years accumulated than evidence that exceptional organizations and leaders repeatedly trusted you with larger, harder, and more important problems.
  • Ideally, a combination of rigorous early-career analytical training and meaningful operating experience within a high-growth technology, commerce, payments, marketplace, or platform business.
  • Experience operating through meaningful scale, ideally with exposure to a company growing through the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, while maintaining the ability and willingness to work hands-on in a lean environment.
  • Exceptional financial modeling and analytical capability. You can personally build and interrogate a complex model, but your value comes from determining what the analysis means and what the company should do because of it.
  • Deep understanding of forecasting, scenario analysis, unit economics, pricing, capital allocation, investment returns, and business-case development.
  • Strong commercial instincts. You understand that Finance exists to improve business decisions, not simply explain historical performance.
  • Demonstrated ability to build KPI frameworks, operating cadences, and performance-management systems that actually change organizational behavior.
  • Demonstrated judgment around organizational scale: you understand the difference between the infrastructure required today and the infrastructure required at future scale.
  • A player-coach mentality. You are comfortable setting the architecture, leading the team, and personally getting into the model or data when required.
  • Strong executive presence and exceptional written and verbal communication skills. You can challenge senior leaders, simplify complicated issues, defend a point of view with data, and make a clear recommendation rather than merely presenting analysis.
  • High intellectual curiosity, low ego, and a natural tendency to go several layers deeper than the question initially asked.
  • Advanced Excel / Sheets capability and strong comfort with BI and analytical tooling. SQL is helpful but not required.
  • Fluency with modern AI tools and agents, with a demonstrated ability to use technology to materially increase personal and team leverage.

Compensation

The salary range for this position is $260,000 – $300,000 annually. Factors which may affect the starting pay within this range include skills, experience, and other qualifications aligned with Updater’s internal leveling guidelines.

About Updater

Updater is a leading technology platform helping major brands acquire and retain customers at scale. We are on a mission to power millions of complex transactions through intelligent, autonomous systems. By combining deep integrations, real-world data, and purpose-built AI agents, we’re transforming fragmented purchasing workflows into seamless, automated experiences – freeing businesses and consumers from operational friction and enabling a new standard of speed, accuracy, and scale.

Updater has raised over $450 million from leading investors, including SoftBank Capital, Vista Credit Partners, IA Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Second Century Ventures (the strategic investment arm of the National Association of Realtors®), and more. For more information, please visit www.updater.com.

Updater is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and will consider all qualified applicants regardless of color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or family status, disability, gender identity or expression, veteran status, actual or presumed belonging to an ethnic group, or any other legally protected status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

Benefits: The Company offers the following benefits for full-time positions, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:

  • Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
  • Flexible PTO
  • 13 paid company holidays annually
  • Updater Stock Options
  • 401(k) with employer match
  • Wellbeing Subsidy
  • One Medical membership
  • Virtual on-demand healthcare through Teladoc and Talkspace
  • Flexible spending account (FSA)
  • Health savings account (HSA)
  • Supplemental Short & Long Term Disability Insurance
  • Supplemental Life Insurance
  • Paid Parental Leave

Apply now >

This job listing has been manually reviewed by the Jobicy Trust & Safety Team for compliance with our posting guidelines, including verification of the company's legitimacy, accuracy of job details, clarity of remote work policy, and absence of misleading or fraudulent content.

Role DNA

A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.

Job Complexity

5/5
EasyHard

Pace & Pressure

5/5
RelaxedFast-paced

Autonomy Level

5/5
GuidedFull ownership

Communication Load

5/5
IndependentCollaborative
AI insightThis is an executive-level role requiring deep strategic-finance expertise, operating-system design, and the ability to influence senior leaders. The leader must balance long-term architecture with hands-on analysis while driving complex cross-functional execution.

Salary analysis

Estimated compensation compared with the broader US market for similar roles.

Estimated job median (per year)Market rate
$280,000
US market range (per year)$240k–$340k
AI insightThe yearly pay period is inferred from the job context; it was not explicitly stated by the employer. The employer discloses a base salary range of $260,000 to $300,000 USD annually, with a midpoint of $280,000. This is a credible annual compensation range for a US-based VP-level strategic finance and business operations leader. The estimated US market range for a comparable role is $240,000 to $340,000 annually, excluding equity, bonuses, and benefits.

Core skills

Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.

Sample interview questions
How would you design a planning and forecasting architecture for a rapidly scaling commerce platform?

I would start with a driver-based model that connects demand, conversion, pricing, retention, partner economics, headcount, and unit costs to revenue and cash outcomes. I would establish an annual operating plan, rolling forecast, long-range plan, clear scenario definitions, and an operating cadence that turns forecast variances into accountable decisions.

Describe how you would evaluate a major investment or new product initiative.

I would define the strategic objective, customer problem, required investment, operating assumptions, risks, and measurable success criteria. I would model upside, downside, and base cases using unit economics, payback, cash impact, and opportunity cost, then recommend a decision with explicit milestones and stop-or-scale thresholds.

How do you ensure KPI dashboards change behavior rather than merely report performance?

I focus dashboards on a limited set of trusted leading and lagging indicators that are directly linked to strategic priorities and owners. Each review should identify what changed, why it changed, what action is required, and who is accountable for the next step.

How would you balance building scalable infrastructure with maintaining a lean organization?

I would first determine whether a recurring problem can be solved through clearer ownership, automation, better data definitions, or lightweight tooling before adding systems or headcount. I would invest in durable infrastructure when it improves decision quality, execution speed, or organizational leverage at meaningful scale.

How do you communicate an unpopular financial recommendation to senior executives?

I would present the decision context, data, assumptions, alternatives, and trade-offs clearly and without overcomplicating the message. I would make a direct recommendation, explain the consequences of inaction, invite challenge on the underlying assumptions, and align on the decision owner and follow-up actions.

This analysis is generated from the job description. Salary estimates, role characteristics and sample answers are guidance, not employer-provided facts.
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