Head of Finance

Highnote was founded in 2020 by former executives from Braintree, PayPal, Lending Club, and Visa with the goal of simplifying payments for emerging enterprises with an all-in-one card issuance and full-stack acquiring platform. In other words, Highnote connects merchants and businesses to the most advanced virtual payments platform - the industry’s first built-for-purpose unified solution for virtual card issuing - extensible through developer friendly open APIs capable of handling the most complex payment processing business flows. Our mission is to help merchants and businesses grow by accelerating their digital transformation with innovative virtual payments products.

Since launching the company in October 2020, Highnote has raised over $90m in funding from Oak HC/FT, Costanoa Ventures, and XYZ Ventures (among others) to help accelerate their time to market and growth. Also invested in Highnote is Bill Ready (current CEO at Pinterest, and former President of Commerce at Google along with former COO of Paypal, and CEO of Braintree and Venmo) and Renaud Laplanche (Co-Founder & CEO of Upgrade, and former Co-Founder & CEO of Lending Club.)

Highnote is headquartered in San Francisco and currently has remote team members in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and New York City. The team is currently 95+ people and growing!

Reporting to the COO and working closely with the leadership team, the head of finance will provide leadership and execution of the finance and accounting functions of the company. You will be responsible for setting up and managing all accounting and financial reporting policies, procedures, internal and external reports. You will ensure that financial transactions are recorded in accordance with policies and statutes and appropriate for a company of our size and phase. This is an opportunity to bring your prior experience and tool kit to an early stage company where you will work across the company to build a robust financial management framework and manage the finance function through our initial phase of high growth. Ideal candidates will have been hands-on finance leaders at a high growth payments company, will have thrived in a variety of financial roles with particular expertise in accounting and experience implementing a financial system. Deep knowledge of the payments ecosystem and economics and interchange rules is an absolute must.

Key Responsibilities 

Accounting

• Direct all aspects of accounting operations
• Develop and maintain accounting policies, procedures and related business processes including internal controls for receipt of revenue, allocation of costs and actual expenditures
• Supervise and control all company accounts, balance sheet, and income statement. This includes managing receivables, payables, payroll, customer credit limits and company cash flow 
• Monitor applicable financial principles and standards for impact and implement required changes
• Work with outside firms and internal stakeholders to conduct applicable audits including annual financial audit and SOC1/SOC2
• Develop, document and conduct customary close processes and reporting 

Budgeting and Financial Reporting

• Oversee the company’s annual budgeting process and quarterly forecasting. Formulate and prepare standard periodic financial reporting package ensuring that there is transparency to drivers of financial and business performance and regular communication of actual to budget results
• Proactively provide actionable insights based on financial and business results 
• Communicate the company’s financial performance to key stakeholders including management and the board of directors
• Formulate ad-hoc financial analysis of any strategic initiatives (e.g. new partnership opportunities, changes to compensation plans, new products, etc.)
• Formulate approach to and implementation of customer/product/marketing returns analysis 
• Work with partner and payment operations to analyze the network and bank costs and ensure appropriate billing and allocation to customers 

Financial/Accounting System

• Working across the company, develop requirements for a new accounting system and lead the vendor analysis and selection. After the vendor has been selected you will be the primary business owner for the financial system implementation 
• Identify requirements and choose appropriate financial tools as the company grows and expands into new areas including credit and acquiring

Other Key Responsibilities

• Build the finance and accounting team as the company grows
• Oversee tax compliance and planning to ensure the company is planning and managing its tax position in a manner that is appropriate for the company’s position. Prepare and file all applicable tax returns
• Oversee stock option administration
• Serve as the 401(k) administrator, managing the 401(k) audit process and filing applicable formsy
• Support negotiations of partner and vendor agreements ensuring the financial implication is well understood

• Outstanding integrity and business judgment 
• Comfort in the startup environment (i.e., sometimes chaotic and lacking structure) and able to create structure and foundational accounting processes
• Strong priority management skills
• Proven experience leading, managing and hiring a team
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, who is able to form relationships while also getting results.
• Humble and friendly personality with an open and honest communication style and the ability to collaborate across all areas and levels.
• Action oriented; no task is too small or insignificant for you.
• Take ownership and deliver results in a fast-paced and sometimes ambiguous environment.
• Has a strong understanding of payments (particularly in card issuing) economics, the profit drivers, cost structure and money flows. 
• Able to anticipate and evaluate business needs to make sure that financial organization and systems appropriately support the company’s growth

• 7 – 10 years of related finance experience
• 5+ years experience as a senior-level accounting or finance manager at a fintech, payments company or similar
• CPA with 3+ years of experience at an accounting firm 
• Working knowledge of finance law and regulatory standards (GAAP)
• Strong understanding of economic and banking processes

• Exemplary history of financial project management and Track record of setting up and managing accounting, conducting financial analysis and forecasting (including three statement financial modeling)
• Strong knowledge of corporate finance and other accounting theory, principles and practices to include GAAP, SaaS accounting, prepaid expenses & accrued revenue, ASC 605: Revenue Recognition, ASC 985-605: Software Revenue Recognition, ASC 805: Stock-Based Compensation
• Experience supporting equity fundraising is strongly preferred
• Working knowledge of federal, state, and local tax compliance regulations and reporting
• Experience scaling a finance team at a company from inception to $10 million+ in annual revenues 
• Experience implementing finance and accounting systems
• Mastery knowledge of google suite tools; accounting software including QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Expensify and Bill.com; and budgeting software 
• Bachelor’s degree in business, accounting, or related field