Operations & Finance Lead

Job Description

Job Description

About the Role

Stray's future Operations & Finance Lead will build the infrastructure that enables Stray to operate at the frontier of regenerative finance with the peace of mind that we are building an operationally excellent fund. This is an autonomous, high-ownership, hands-on role for an analytical leader who enjoys translating financial data into operational insights and decision-making.

You will own fund/portfolio ops and reporting, design and maintain team operations systems, and manage service provider relationships to strengthen the firm’s infrastructure as we scale our impact. This is a team-of-one position reporting directly to the Partner. The ideal candidate has operated at this level before—at a small fund, family office, or similar context—and is drawn to Stray because (1) you want your operational skills to serve a purpose beyond operational efficiency, (2) you're eager to explore the role of capital in driving positive systems change, and (3) you are a polymath who loves being involved in many projects at once.

How This Role Will Resource Us

Responsibilities

Fund Finance & Reporting

• Own LP reporting: produce narratives, financial schedules, and portfolio summaries within required timelines, coordinating with fund admin. What Stray is attempting is unusual, which makes LP reporting a programmatic function as much as an administrative one. Your reporting, in collaboration with our Sr. Manager of Ecosystem & Impact, should help translate our work to various LP audiences while shifting what they perceive of their own contributions (and those of their larger portfolios) to financial systems change.
  

• Serve as Stray’s primary interface with accounting, tax, and fund administration: oversee financial planning & treasury management, coordinate tax preparation, arrange capital calls and vendor payments, and escalate strategic decisions to leadership as needed
  

• Lead the annual audit process end-to-end: coordinate annual financial report preparation, respond to auditor requests, and manage timeline
  

Team & Ecosystem Operations

• Refine Stray's operational infrastructure to enable better work and deeper impact: design team workflows, decision-making frameworks, and cross-functional collaboration systems in Notion
  

• Project manage Stray’s field-building experiments and partnerships: evolve IC engagement infrastructure, evolve portfolio-support mechanisms, evaluate and track Stray-owned field-building initiatives, and keep close tabs on collaborative projects and next steps
  

• Enhance HR workflows, including hiring and onboarding, and own future hiring processes
  

Portfolio Operations

• Co-design portfolio monitoring infrastructure with Sr. Manager of Ecosystem & Impact: coordinate annual portfolio impact reports; own portfolio NAV tracking, financial projections, and scenario analyses that optimize for portfolio-wide resilience and interconnectedness; track financial and impact performance over time; and synthesize data for LP reporting and IC review
  

• Support Partners with ad hoc financial modeling: perform returns analyses for deals in diligence with non-traditional capital structures and financial dynamics
  

• Develop investment operations and closing processes that scale with the fund’s growth
  

RequirementsWho We’re Hoping Will “Stray” With Us

Education and Professional Experience

• 5+ years of experience in investment/portfolio operations, family office or fund back-office finance, or fund administration, with meaningful responsibility for LP reporting
  

• Demonstrated track record of developing internal systems that facilitate multi-stakeholder collaboration and complex decision-making 
  

• Strong working knowledge of fund accounting, waterfall structures, capital account mechanics, and audit processes
  

• Proficiency with financial modeling, including portfolio-wide and deal-level analyses, and advanced Microsoft Excel / Google Sheets skills
  

• Experience managing service provider relationships as a primary point of contact
  

• Tech-fluent with Notion, Google Workspace, MS Office, Miro; and comfortable evaluating when new tech systems may be necessary
  

Skills and Personal Traits

• Executes with independence and transparency: identifies what needs to be done; makes recommendations for how to do it; executes independently when it makes sense; and knows when to ask for help, approval, or collaboration
  

• Clear, confident communicator with LP-facing writing quality: able to produce polished reports, LP updates, and other external correspondence/memos without heavy editing
  

• Comfortable architecting systems in ambiguous conditions, drawing on prior experience without being constrained by it
  

• Understands and is committed to Stray’s mission, holding the point of view that operational excellence in a fund like this is a form of systems stewardship
  

• Uses AI responsibly, safely, and ethically: comfortable utilizing emerging technologies as a tool to support language, clarity, flow, or data aggregation; not as a crutch or replacement for human ingenuity
  

• Aligned with Stray’s values: Wonder, Synergy, Evolvability, Integrity, Emergence, and Play
  

Stray is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or pregnancy, or any other characteristic protected by law. Our policy of equal employment opportunity applies to all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, promotions, transfers, discipline, terminations, wage and salary administration, benefits, and training. We are committed to fostering a fair and inclusive workplace in which every employee feels valued, respected, and celebrated.

Benefits

• Salary: $130,000–$180,000 (commensurate with experience, as we are open to both manager- and director-level hires)