Head of Finance

Job Description

Job Description

About Highnote 

Founded in 2020 by a team of leaders from Braintree, PayPal, and Lending Club, Highnote is the unified platform for embedded finance, built for modern issuing, acquiring, credit, ledger, and real-time money movement. With an integrated ledger, full program management, and a purpose-built architecture, we help companies design financial products around their customers and launch faster with greater control. 

We've raised $145M+ and have grown our team to 140+ employees across 25+ US States, with headquarters in San Francisco. Along the way, we've built one of the most experienced payments teams in the industry.

We're fast-moving and hands-on, and we believe everyone deserves a seat at the table. Our values of customer obsession, executional excellence, intentional inclusion, guide how we build the payment products of tomorrow's business needs. We're looking for people who want to help shape the future of payments.

This is a leadership role for a finance leader who wants to shape the direction of a high-growth payments company. Reporting to the COO and partnering closely with the CEO and the rest of the leadership team, you will be the person who looks ahead, reads what the numbers are telling us, and proactively lays out the financial moves the company should make. You will not wait to be asked for analysis. You will bring it, defend it, and help us act on it.

Payments is a business of fine margins and constant tradeoffs, where economics, mix, and cost all move together. We are looking for a leader who understands those dynamics, sees around corners, forms a clear point of view, and turns it into recommendations the leadership team can act on with confidence. You will also stand behind those numbers when it counts, including with our auditors, where your judgment and the integrity of our reporting matter.

We want someone who is genuinely forward-leaning on technology and AI, and who will use it to transform how our financial operations run. The goal is to take our analysis to the next level, using automation and AI to produce sharper, faster, and deeper insight and to give the team more room for the thinking that moves the business, all while preserving the auditability and control our reporting depends on.

Financial and analytical leadership.

• Proactively analyze the business, spot where we are heading financially, and recommend the steps we should be taking, ahead of being asked.
• Own the strategic financial narrative: what is driving performance, what it means for the plan, and where the risks and opportunities are.
• Run scenario and sensitivity work so leadership can see the financial impact of major decisions, new products, and customer changes before they are made.
• Be a genuine partner to the CEO and COO, translating financial reality into clear, defensible guidance that shapes company decisions.

Planning and reporting.

• Guide the annual operating plan and regular forecasting, working with the team that runs the day-to-day modeling, and hold the overall view of revenue, gross profit, operating expense, and burn.
• Deliver a clean, insightful reporting package to the leadership team and the board that explains what happened, why, and what we should do about it.

Capital, burn, and treasury.

• Manage burn and runway with a clear point of view on where spend earns its keep and where it does not.
• Own cash flow, treasury, and banking relationships, and support debt facilities and covenant compliance.
• Support equity and debt fundraising with the model, the diligence materials, and the analysis investors will expect.

Controls and audit.

• Partner with the Controller, who owns the monthly close and tax, to keep reporting accurate, timely, and audit-ready, and to strengthen internal controls as we scale.
• Stand behind the company's financial positions and judgments with our external auditors, and defend the decisions we make when they are examined.
• Keep financial reporting compliant with GAAP and appropriate for our size and phase.

Strategic initiatives.

• Lead the financial workstreams behind our strategic and regulatory initiatives, including the financial planning, projections, and capital considerations they require.

Transforming financial operations.

• Own the finance technology stack, from the NetSuite core to the tools around it, and set the standard for how a high-performing finance function runs.
• Use automation and AI to transform financial operations across forecasting, reporting, invoicing, and reconciliation, taking analysis to the next level and freeing the team for higher-value work, while preserving auditability and control at every step.

Team and leadership.

• Lead, coach, and raise the bar for a strong existing finance team, and build the organization the company needs as it scales.

• A trusted voice. The leadership team looks to you for the financial read on where the business is heading, and you are bringing recommendations before anyone has to ask.
• A forecast people rely on. Leadership relies on the forecast, and the gap between plan and actuals is small and well understood.
• Disciplined burn. Burn and runway are managed deliberately, and every major spend decision has a financial case behind it.
• Audit-ready and defensible. Our financial positions hold up cleanly under audit, and the judgments behind them are well documented and defensible.
• Operations transformed. Automation and AI are elevating the quality and speed of our analysis and freeing the team for higher-value work, with full auditability preserved.

• Twelve or more years in finance, with a strong track record as a strategic finance leader at a high-growth payments or fintech company.
• Range across stages. You have thrived in both small, fast-moving companies and larger, more structured ones, and you have grown in scope and responsibility alongside the businesses you have been part of.
• Payments fluency. Deep, practical knowledge of payments economics, including card issuing and acquiring, interchange, network costs, and the money flows and profit drivers that sit behind them. This is essential.
• Analyst, not just accountant. A strong financial analyst at the core, not just a steward of the books. You are as comfortable building the analysis and forming the recommendation as you are making sure the numbers are right.
• Sharp and rigorous. Exceptional analytical horsepower. You get to the heart of complex, ambiguous problems quickly, and bring rigor and clear judgment to every recommendation.
• Tech and AI forward. Genuine comfort with technology, and a track record of using automation and AI to transform financial operations and take analysis to the next level, without compromising auditability or control.
• Experience scaling a finance function through rapid revenue growth and into new business lines such as credit or acquiring.
• Experience managing burn and runway, and supporting fundraising, debt, or both.
• Experience working with external auditors and standing behind financial reporting and judgments under review.
• A track record of leading finance teams and raising the standard of the people and processes around them.
• Clear, direct communication, sound judgment, and the composure to bring order to a fast-moving environment.

We move quickly, we are direct with each other, and we care about getting the details right. You will have real ownership from day one and the ear of a leadership team that treats finance as a partner in the business, not a scorekeeper. If you want to shape the financial direction of a payments company through one of the most consequential phases of its growth, we would like to talk.

• Build from the ground up. As an early-stage company, we give every employee the chance to shape what we build and how we operate, with impact across the whole organization.
• Payments-obsessed, from every background. Some of us come from fintech and some of us don't. We value the range of experience and perspective each person brings.
• Small on hierarchy, big on growth. We're a flat organization, so everyone works directly with our leadership team. We're looking for builders who thrive in ambiguity.
• Backed by top investors. Our investors include Oak HC/FT, Costanoa Ventures, Adams Street Partners, Westcap, and Pinegrove Venture Partners. Our angel investors include Bill Ready (CEO of Pinterest) and Renaud Laplanche (Co-Founder and CEO of Upgrade).

Highnote benefits

• Equity in Highnote
• Flexible paid time off
• Health coverage: 100% covered for employees and 75% for dependents
• 401(k) program
• Paid parental leave
• Remote work support: a home office stipend, plus internet and phone reimbursement

Compensation

Our total rewards approach is built on fair, equitable, location-based pay that reflects both performance and potential. We set our packages using thorough market research, and they combine base salary, equity, and benefits. In line with pay transparency requirements, the annual salary range for this role is $275,000-$315,000. 

Work Location

Roles based in San Francisco are hybrid, and we're in the office Monday through Thursday. We offer flexible arrangements depending on how far you live from our downtown SF office. We believe in the power of face-to-face connection, so we give priority to candidates who can work from the office.

Equal Opportunity

Highnote is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team, and we welcome applicants of all backgrounds and identities. We do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, national origin, citizenship, disability, pregnancy status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by US federal, state, or local law, or by the laws of the country or jurisdiction where you work. We also invite you to share the pronouns you'd like us to use (e.g., she/her, he/him, they/them).

A Note on Recruitment Fraud

Highnote will never ask you for payment or bank details, and we never conduct interviews over text or chat apps. All official communication comes from an @highnote.com email address or through Greenhouse.