Senior Finance Director (LA, New Orleans)

Senior Finance Director (LA, New Orleans)

NewEdge Advisors (NEA) is a division of NewEdge Capital Group (NECG), a national wealth management platform with approximately $100 billion in client assets. NEA supports advisors across two models: independent advisor groups operating on a 1099 basis, and W-2 firm-owned advisor teams. The platform provides the technology, transition support, compliance infrastructure, and practice economics that let advisors serve clients and grow — whether they run their own business or operate within a NEA-owned team. NEA is headquartered in New Orleans and is one of the fastest-growing platforms in the wealth management space.

The Role

NEA is hiring a senior finance director. This is not a corporate accounting seat — consolidated accounting, audit, tax, and treasury sit at the parent company. Nor is it a purely strategic seat: this is a player-coach role for a finance leader who owns NEA’s financial narrative, planning, and analysis, and is equally hands‑on in the machinery underneath it — month-close, reconciliations, billing accuracy, and the data controls the business depends on — supported by a small finance team of two.

The right candidate wants to be neck‑deep in the business: advisor economics across both affiliation models, recruiting and acquisition economics, custodian and clearing economics, revenue integrity, unit‑level profitability — and takes personal ownership of the numbers being accurate, insightful and timely.

What You’ll Own

• Own NEA’s annual budget, quarterly reforecasts, and long‑range plan, including revenue build by advisor group and channel (1099 and W-2), payout and compensation economics, and expense architecture
• Lead monthly operating reviews with the CEO and leadership team; translate results into decisions, not just reporting
• Manage NEA’s P&L in close partnership with the parent‑company finance team, including intercompany and overhead allocation dynamics
• Work closely with maturing data function to capture and analyze KPIs for NEA
• Lead a lean divisional finance team of two, responsible for administrative and production support across monthly close, reconciliation, reporting, and data requests
• Set the team’s priorities, quality standards, and development; build processes that scale with the division rather than headcount

Financial Operations, Month‑Close & Billing Oversight

• Own BU‑level financial controls in coordination with parent‑company accounting
• Monitor and oversee the month‑end close process to ensure accurate divisional revenue and expense data flows to NEA leadership and NECG finance for consolidated financials
• Reconcile transactions, fees, and payouts by collecting and comparing data across multiple sources — custodial platforms, the firm’s portfolio accounting and reporting systems, and compensation systems.
• Work with the firm’s systems and reporting infrastructure to generate insightful financial information — including ensuring Softek outputs what NECG finance needs for consolidated reporting, planning, and analysis
• Maintain a structured partnership with the Operations‑managed billing team — finance holds a dotted‑line view into billing processes, exception trends, and system changes affecting revenue, while day‑to‑day billing execution remains with Operations
• Ensure client billing matches financial expectations, and be able to answer questions on when and why it diverges: audit client fee billing & rebate accuracy, reconciliation of billed‑to‑collected‑to‑booked revenue, fee schedule and payout validation & testing, and identification of revenue leakage or billing exceptions
• Maintain accurate RIA and custodial reporting and documentation to support audit and regulatory requests

Data Integrity & Insight Infrastructure

• Own data request management and controls for the division: a disciplined intake, prioritization, and validation process for financial and business data requests, so leadership, the board, and the parent company get consistent answers from a single source of truth
• Ensure the accuracy of the KPIs the business reports and manages by — net new assets, advisor retention, revenue per advisor, channel‑level margin — including the definitions, methodology, and controls behind them
• Create and manage repeatable, standardized monthly and quarterly reporting for NEA leadership and advisor teams: AUM, brokerage and advisory production, profitability by team and advisor, and account‑level summaries
• Build and standardize the division’s data and insight needs so key analyses are readily available on demand — systematized through platforms like Softek rather than rebuilt ad hoc
• Assemble and synthesize data across business functions — Finance, HR, Operations — as divisional needs require
• Build and maintain unit economics across both affiliation models: 1099 payout structures, W‑2 compensation and partnership frameworks, transition assistance, and forgivable‑loan economics with breakeven and payback analysis
• Support leadership and advisors with data modeling, forecasting, and analysis for both current and prospective advisor teams
• Own the economics of the full revenue stack — advisory fees, brokerage/commission flows, and the BD/RIA revenue architecture that sits behind them
• Model and manage custodian and clearing economics: cash sweep revenue, asset‑based pricing, ticket charges, custodial support arrangements, and the negotiating leverage that comes with platform scale
• Track cohort performance of recruited advisors and acquired teams against underwriting assumptions and surface variances early

M&A Finance Coordination

• Partner with the platform’s dedicated M&A team on deals affecting NEA: assess how transactions will impact the division’s financials, integration economics, and operating plan
• Ensure M&A reporting and projections presented to the board are realistic, accurate, and reconciled to how deals actually perform post‑close
• Serve as the finance voice on integration planning — payout migration, expense absorption, and synergy tracking against deal model

Proactive Analysis & Decision Support

• Identify margin drivers and leaks before they show up in results — pricing, payout drift, sweep‑rate sensitivity, vendor spend, technology transition costs
• Build the dashboard and reporting infrastructure the leadership team runs on: EBITDA bridges, channel‑level profitability, cohort performance
• Pressure‑test business cases for growth investments, new capabilities, and platform initiatives

Board & Sponsor Support

• Prepare divisional materials for board reporting and sponsor reviews; own the NEA financial narrative including growth‑investment framing and margin trajectory
• Support diligence workstreams for platform‑level M&A and capital events as they affect NEA

Partnership with Parent‑Company Finance

• Serve as NEA’s primary interface with the NewEdge Capital Group CFO and accounting/finance organization
• Ensure divisional reporting, allocation methodology, and planning cadence align with holding‑company requirements

Who You Are

• 10+ years of progressive finance experience in wealth management or securities‑industry organizations providing investment advisory services; hybrid RIA/broker‑dealer platform experience strongly preferred
• Working fluency in BD and RIA economics — advisory vs. brokerage revenue dynamics, payout grids across affiliation models, regulatory capital considerations, and how the hybrid model actually generates margin
• Hands‑on custodian and clearing economics experience: sweep programs, asset‑based pricing, ticket charges, and clearing arrangements; direct experience with Fidelity, Schwab, Raymond James, Goldman Sachs and/or LPL clearing preferred
• Strong systems and data orientation: experience making wealth platforms (portfolio accounting, billing, compensation, and reporting systems such as Softek, Orion, Salesforce) produce reliable, decision‑ready output — and building the automated controls that keep it reliable; general ledger experience (Dynamics 365) a plus
• Advanced Excel required; working proficiency in BI tools (Power BI, Tableau) strongly preferred
• Familiarity with advisory fee billing operations and revenue cycle in an RIA/BD environment — fee schedules, billing systems, householding, rebates, and the reconciliation chain from client account to firm revenue
• M&A finance fluency: ability to assess deal impact on divisional financials, validate projections, and track post‑close performance against deal model
• Deep FP&A and business‑partnering background; you’ve owned a P&L narrative, not just consolidated one
• Experience leading small, high‑output finance teams — comfortable delegating production work while staying close enough to catch what’s wrong
• Demonstrated ability to document complex processes and implement quality‑control frameworks across a firm
• PE‑backed company experience a strong plus — you know what sponsor‑grade analysis looks like and can produce it under time pressure
• Builder mentality with genuine willingness to work hands‑on: comfortable creating the analytical infrastructure — and running it — rather than inheriting it
• Low ego, high ownership; equally effective with advisors, executives, and board members
• Based in or willing to relocate to New Orleans; this is an in‑person leadership role
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Accounting, or related field; [FINRA SIE, Series 7, and/or 65/66 a plus]