Chief Financial Officers (CFO)

Responsibilities:

Responsibilities encompass oversight of all aspects of finance and accounting. Specific responsibilities include:

·      Business Partner: Serve as a business partner and strategic adviser to the leadership team and as the new PE sponsor. Provide analysis and insights to critical business matters to drive profitable operations and growth. Partner closely with franchise development team to optimize revenue growth and network profitability, acting as the key intersection between revenue strategy, forecasting, and cost management. Contribute actively to the evolution and execution of strategic business plans, including organic growth and business development strategies. Partner with franchisees to enhance financial transparency, improve unit-level reporting, provide value-added procurement solutions, and drive sustainable profitability across the franchise network, including optimizing the royalty structures and aligning financial support systems with franchisee success.

·      Financial Planning / Budget: Lead efforts to drive analytical rigor within the finance function so that business decisions throughout the organization are informed by detailed analytical insights. Provide overall leadership to the management reporting, financial planning, and budgeting processes through investments in technology and business process improvements. Create profit and loss strategies that align with franchise operations and growth initiatives by fully burdening these activities with costs to understand gross profit / EBITDA at the location level.

·      Treasury: Play a leading role in optimizing the Company’s capital structure and balance sheet. Manage banking and financial advisor relationships, interface with investors, lenders, and manage bank credit lines and loans. Develop and enhance procedures for working capital management and operating expense optimization.

·      Reporting / Control: Oversee and lead financial reporting. Contribute and supervise the preparation of timely and accurate financial reports, including tax filings performance to GAAP accounting standards. Ensure the fiscal integrity of the business through enhancement and management of accounting systems and controls. Manage audit and tax processes and providers. Establish procedures to proactively identify, monitor, and mitigate financial and operational risks, including subsidy exposure, regulatory compliance requirements, and data security, particularly within the franchised environment.

·      Team Leadership: Provide effective and visible leadership to the finance organization, ensuring the development of the required financial capabilities for the Company. Ensure the function is properly resourced and organized and develop a business partner focus across the organization. Assess and build scalable structure which is currently a finance team of 2 FTE plus outsourced accounting, tax, audit and HR services.

What matters most:

·      The ideal candidate has been a sitting CFO or finance leader and will bring experiences from businesses with relevant scale and complexity, with a particular focus on enhancing operational / P&L rigor to improve profitability and maximize value creation.

·        Experience overseeing financial operations within a multi-unit franchise system, including unit-level reporting, royalty structures, invoicing, franchisee support, and compliance with FDD and regulatory requirements. Prior experience in education or childcare preferred industries preferred.

·        Experience in a private equity environment and creating or improving Board reporting and KPIs. A deep understanding of value drivers and experience creating value in a private equity backed business. Capable of standing up a compliant, right-sized finance and accounting organizational structure.

·      Experience building, leading and motivating a multi-functional staff in a fast paced, high growth environment. Transition from a payroll/clerical and outsourced finance team to a lean, in-house team. The CFO will have the capacity to effectively work in a lean, hands-on environment and be willing to roll up their sleeves building a team over time. 

·      Strong accounting functional skills and experience selecting and implementing financial systems. Background converting from a QuickBooks to a more sophisticated financial systems and/or ERP is critical. Familiarity with compliance and building high integrity systems and controls in a regulated state industry is preferred.

·      Experience overseeing functions in support of corporate services like HR, legal and technology.

·      Personal passion for youth development; ideal candidate will need to display passion for franchising and growth businesses, and a preference for family-managed businesses. 

·      Culturally a hard-working, flexible and highly collaborative team player, with strong communication and organizational skills. Strategic and analytical skills are balanced with pragmatism and an entrepreneurial passion for execution. Mission-aligned and eager to be part of a growth business.