VP, Strategy & Analytics, Office of the CEO

About Kafene Kafene is revolutionizing the lease-to-own space. Kafene's lease-to-own platform gives consumers across the credit continuum up to $5,000 in purchasing power, with the ability to cancel anytime, for any reason. With AI and machine learning models that analyze 20,000+ data inputs in real time, we empower retailers across furniture, appliances, electronics, tires, and durable goods to say "yes" to more customers. With over $500 million in sales and counting, we're just getting started. Our 150-person team spans NYC headquarters, Wilmington, and remote talent across the globe—all united by a culture that thrives on collaboration, innovation, and support. That's why BuiltIn named us a Startup to Watch and Forbes recognized us as one of the Best Startup Employers. About the Role At a firm like Kafene where every team is data-driven, this is a rare opportunity to be the CEO's analytical right hand: the person who takes a messy, open-ended business question and returns a thoughtful, data-backed answer using queries and analysis you’ve built. The VP of Strategy and Analytics will report to the CEO and provide visibility at his fingertips — the ability to ask a hard question ("why did charge-offs spike last month, and what drove it?") and get a rigorous, multi-step, causal answer quickly in a format that he wants. We are seeking a high-impact, high-visibility individual contributor who can understand and communicate the business problem through analysis — writing queries, building dashboards, and delivering a clear causal narrative the CEO can act on. This role offers exciting opportunities for growth. As the business scales, there is potential to build and lead a team, or become the person who owns portfolio analytics for the company. Either direction puts you at the center of how Kafene makes decisions. What You'll Do Take ambiguous questions from the CEO and turn them into structured investigations: define the hypothesis, pull the data yourself, test it, and develop a clear narrative. Write your own SQL queries within the company’s data and analytics tools (Sigma and Snowflake); this is a daily, non-negotiable part of the job Build and maintain the reporting the CEO needs to see the business clearly: originations, decisioning, funding, delinquency/DPD, early-payoff, cash-on-cash and collection curves, cohort and vintage behavior, repeat vs. new customer performance, merchant and store performance. etc. Initially, focus on building a suite of portfolio risk reports (delinquency, charge-off, vintage, and cohort performance) that give the CEO a real-time view of how the book is performing Trace anomalies to their root causes — segment by vintage, channel, merchant, score band, and decisioning change until you can explain what moved and why Reconcile your numbers against what the functional teams report; when they differ, explain the delta Synthesize findings into a clear narrative a busy CEO can act on, backed by data he can trust What You'll Bring You personally write SQL (or equivalent) and are comfortable doing so every day — this is verified in the interview with a live analytical exercise A combination of analytical rigor and clear communication Strong working fluency in consumer credit and lending mechanics: vintages, first-payment default, delinquency curves, cash-on-cash, cohort and repeat-customer dynamics; lease-to-own or specialty consumer finance experience is a strong plus Excellent judgement and an ability to escalate and flag what you don’t know You thrive as a party of one — you want proximity to hard problems, not a team to manage or a function to build Likely backgrounds: strategic finance or biz-ops at a lending or fintech company; PE or private credit analyst who codes; data analyst or scientist with consumer lending experience who writes well; ex-consulting followed by a hands-on, data-heavy operating role How We'll Assess You The core of the process is a live, ambiguous analytical exercise against a sanitized business dataset. We're evaluating how you structure the investigation, whether you go to the data yourself, and whether you can land a clear causal narrative at the end. Compensation and Benefits Base Salary: $200,000-300,000 Healthcare: We prioritize your well-being by covering 80–90% of medical, dental, and vision insurance costs, including coverage for your spouse, children, and other dependents Retirement Benefits: Begin planning for your future from day one with our 401k plan Paid Time Off: We value work-life balance, which is why we offer flexible paid time off starting from your first day of employment We're building a team as diverse as the customers we serve. Kafene is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer, and we mean it. We welcome qualified applicants of every race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, veteran status, and all other legally protected characteristics. Need accommodation during the application process? We've got you. If you're applying for a U.S. position and require reasonable accommodation at any stage, reach out to View email address on click.appcast.io with details about your request and contact information. We're here to help make the process work for you. Note: This email address is specifically for accommodation requests and will only respond to those inquiries.