VP of Finance

The Role

You'll be the most senior finance person in the company and own the full finance function:  forecasting, accounting, budgeting and board and internal reporting, and the systems that support how SchoolAI runs day to day.

You'll work directly with the CEO and the leadership team on the numbers behind every major decision: how and when we allocate capital, how decisions impact runway, what’s working and not working and why, etc. This is a seat at the leadership table, not just a seat behind the numbers.

This is a hands-on role where you’ll be closing the books, modeling, running reports and analysis, building and presenting board decks, while also being the person leadership calls when looking for clarity or financial insight.

We expect the work to get done differently than it would have in the past. We sell AI and we expect our own functions to leverage it and finance is one of the places where the leverage is most obvious and useful.

What this role owns

FP&A

• Own company-wide forecasting, budgeting, and scenario modeling: cash runway, burn rate, headcount costs, and vertical SaaS unit economics (ARR, GRR, NRR, CAC payback, LTV, gross margin, burn multiple)
• Build and maintain the model that leadership and the board actually rely on, not a spreadsheet that only makes sense to the person who built it
• Holds teams accountable to budgets set and agreed upon.

Board & Investor Reporting

• Own the monthly and quarterly board reporting package and investor updates, including quarterly board decks
• Handle ad hoc data requests from our investors directly and quickly
• Build the model and materials that support our next capital raise, and be the person who's ready for what investors ask in diligence

Financial Operations & Systems

• Own the finance stack: GL, spend platform, billing, the month-end close process, and how it all integrates: Rippling (payroll), Ramp (Spend management), and HubSpot (revenue/contract data)
• Build the systems and processes now so they still work when the company is twice the size
• Decide what stays outsourced (bookkeeping, tax) versus what should move in-house, and build the team as the work demands it

Cash & Runway Management

• Own runway targets and the working capital execution that protects them. Collections against district payment cycles, billing terms, deferred revenue mechanics, and the seasonal cash trough
• Flag risks and opportunities early: if a decision moves runway or burn in a meaningful way, you're the person who catches it before it becomes a surprise
• Partner with the executive team on hiring, spending, and pricing decisions

Accounting

• Owns monthly, quarterly, and annual close process. Execution is outsourced today to a third-party accounting firm. The output and fidelity of the results are yours even if you’re not fully executing the close for each period
• Proper GAAP treatment is your call to make and your position to defend via documented memos: ASC 606 revenue recognition, Deferred revenue, Capitalized R&D, accruals, stock compensation, ASC 842
• Compliance & audit readiness

Deal & Pricing Support

• Partner with the revenue team on deal structuring, bookings reporting and optimizations, discounting guardrails, and the margin implications of go-to-market decisions
• Bring a clear point of view on what a deal actually costs us versus what it's worth

What we're looking for

• Strong finance leadership experience. Previously owned and built the function. We care more about what you’ve owned and demonstrated than the number of years experience. CPA is a plus, not a requirement.
• You’ve built or scaled finance teams inside a SaaS company, ideally through more than one stage of growth, without inheriting a finished playbook.
• You've owned board and investor reporting directly, not just fed numbers to someone else who presented them
• You've built financial systems and processes from a smaller, scrappier state into something that could support a much bigger company, without waiting for someone to hand you a finished playbook
• You're comfortable being hands-on: this isn't a role where you build a big team on day one. You're modeling, closing books, and running analysis yourself, while also being the person leadership calls when looking for clarity.
• Strong instincts on SaaS unit economics and what those metrics mean as we scale
• Comfortable in a lean, fast-moving company where priorities shift and you're expected to figure things out rather than inherit a fully built-out finance org
• Experience with K12 or public sector revenue cycles is a strong plus