Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Our client is building a completely new model for addressing global hunger, as part of a public - private partnership with a focus on efficiency and transparency, and is seeking an exceptional finance executive to be an integral member of its senior leadership team. The company is in an early stage of growth with core systems partially established through interim support. The company seeks a hands-on builder with strong judgment, comfort with ambiguity, and the ability to create clarity, systems, and momentum where they do not yet exist. The right candidate is energized by blank pages, enjoys designing practical solutions, and thrives in fast-moving, mission-driven startup environments.

The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) will serve as a senior financial leader and strategic architect for its next phase of growth, responsible for refining, scaling, and leading the organization’s financial strategy, capital stewardship model, and institutional financial infrastructure. The CFO will directly manage the Controller and Operations Manager and will oversee the outsourced operational arrangements that support finance, accounting, audit, tax, IT, HR, recruiting, payroll, and other back-office needs.

This is not a traditional steady-state CFO role, nor is it a purely blank-page build. Building on foundational systems and frameworks already underway, the CFO will assess, strengthen, and evolve financial and operational infrastructure to support Phase 2 growth and long-term institutional scale.

This leader will help shape how the company grows from an ambitious early-stage platform into a mature, high-performing institution by determining which capabilities should be owned internally versus outsourced, refining the financial and control architecture needed to responsibly steward large-scale public and private capital, and ensuring that systems remain lean, credible, scalable, and fit for purpose.

Key Responsibilities

1) Finance and Operations Strategy, Capital Stewardship, and Organizational Design

• Lead the organization’s overall financial strategy, ensuring strong stewardship of philanthropic, public, and future multi-source funding.
• Refine and scale the financial architecture required to support a high-growth, high-accountability global funding platform.
• Develop and oversee annual budgets, long-term forecasts, scenario plans, and capital deployment models.
• Lead treasury, liquidity, and cash flow strategy in partnership with leadership and the Treasurer.
• Build, lead, and continuously strengthen a lean but high-performing finance and operations function, including direct management of key internal team members such as the Controller and Operations Manager, while effectively leveraging project-based support and outsourced consultants where appropriate.
• Design and manage team structure, responsibilities, and external partnerships to ensure the organization has the right capabilities, capacity, and expertise at each stage of growth without overbuilding prematurely.
• Translate financial strategy into practical institutional design decisions that support the organization’s phased growth.

2) Enterprise Operations, Systems, and Organizational Infrastructure

• Own the strategy, design, and performance of the organization’s enterprise operations platform, including finance, people operations, payroll, benefits administration, IT, cybersecurity, enterprise systems, and other core administrative functions.
• Ensure internal teams, systems, policies, and outsourced providers operate as a coordinated institutional platform rather than as disconnected functional arrangements.
• Establish clear service expectations, decision rights, escalation pathways, controls, and accountability across internal and external operating partners.
• Lead decisions about which capabilities should remain outsourced, become fractional, or transition in-house as the organization grows.
• Ensure the organization’s technology and operating systems are secure, integrated, scalable, and appropriately simple for the organization’s current stage.
• Maintain a disciplined focus on operational efficiency, ensuring infrastructure serves the mission without becoming unnecessarily bureaucratic.
• Oversee operational resilience, cybersecurity, business continuity, insurance, and enterprise risk in partnership with appropriate internal and external experts.

3) Financial Systems Architecture and Scalable Infrastructure

• Assess, strengthen, and oversee the foundational financial systems, controls, and reporting structures required to scale the organization responsibly and uphold our high standards of public transparency.
• Determine which functions to build internally versus outsource, balancing efficiency, quality, cost, and control.
• Design and continuously refine a scalable finance operating model that evolves with organizational growth.
• Ensure systems are designed not only for current needs, but for future complexity, donor scrutiny, and expansion.
• Help prevent premature overbuilding while avoiding structural weaknesses that create downstream risk.
  
  

4) Outsourced Financial Ecosystem Design and Oversight

• Select, structure, and oversee external partners to support accounting, bookkeeping, audit preparation, tax, ERP, FP&A, or other back-office functions, as appropriate.
• Serve as the strategic owner of the organization’s outsourced financial ecosystem, ensuring providers are well-directed, quality-controlled, and aligned with organizational needs.
• Establish strong oversight frameworks to ensure external firms execute against thoughtfully designed systems and standards.
• Continuously evaluate when the organization should scale in-house capacity versus maintain external partnerships.
  
  

5) Compliance, Controls, and Risk Management

• Ensure the organization maintains strong internal controls, audit readiness, financial compliance, and accountability systems that meet U.S. Government funding requirements, nonprofit accounting standards, and donor expectations.
• Build upon and strengthen financial governance, internal audit, whistleblower, and related oversight mechanisms that promote transparency, ethical operations, independent review, and organizational credibility.
• Design, implement, and oversee the organization’s enterprise risk management framework, ensuring organizational, financial, operational, reputational, and compliance risks are proactively identified, assessed, mitigated, and clearly escalated through appropriate governance pathways.
• Partner closely with Compliance, Risk, and Contracts leadership to ensure strong institutional safeguards, coordinated decision-making, and enterprise-level financial and operational resilience.

6) Contract Approval & Cross-Functional Financial Coordination

• Partner closely with Contracts, Compliance, Risk, Programs, Supply Chain, and leadership teams to ensure the organization’s financial structures support compliant, scalable, and operationally sound execution.
• Help design and oversee financial review and approval frameworks for major contracts, grants, subawards, and funding structures to ensure strong stewardship, feasibility, and institutional safeguards.
• Assess significant financial, structural, and operational implications of major strategic decisions, partnerships, and funding arrangements.
• Ensure financial oversight mechanisms appropriately balance speed, accountability, and risk management without unnecessarily slowing execution.
• Support the design of clear cross-functional decision rights and approval pathways that strengthen institutional coordination while avoiding duplication or control gaps.
  
  

7) Leadership, Board Partnership, and Strategic Advisory

• Serve as a core strategic advisor to the CEO, the rest of the Leadership Team, Treasurer, and Board on financial strategy, infrastructure, and institutional scale.
• Prepare clear financial dashboards, reports, models, and analyses to support high-quality decision-making.
• Help leadership understand the financial implications of growth, funding, staffing, and structural decisions.
• Support long-term planning related to future fundraising complexity, global expansion, and evolving institutional needs.
  
  

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive leadership spanning finance, operations, organizational strategy, or institutional growth, including experience as a CFO, Deputy CFO, Controller, or other senior finance and operations executive.
• Demonstrated success operating across both U.S. Government-funded or similarly regulated environments and private-sector, commercial, philanthropic, or entrepreneurial organizations, with the judgment to integrate the strengths of each rather than defaulting to traditional nonprofit or government operating models.
• Deep expertise in financial strategy, capital stewardship, budgeting, forecasting, treasury, enterprise controls, audit readiness, and organizational risk management, including a strong understanding of U.S. Government funding requirements, nonprofit accounting principles, and 2 CFR 200.
• Experience designing, building, and scaling finance and operations functions in startup, early-stage, rapidly growing, or otherwise complex organizations, including determining which capabilities should be built internally versus delivered through outsourced or fractional partners.
• Demonstrated success leading integrated finance and operations ecosystems, including oversight of accounting, payroll, HR operations, enterprise systems, IT, cybersecurity, benefits administration, and external professional service providers.
• Experience managing hybrid funding environments, including philanthropic, governmental, or other blended-capital models, with an appreciation for the different expectations, reporting requirements, and decision-making disciplines associated with each.
• Strong executive judgment and the ability to translate complex financial and operational issues into practical decisions for executive leadership and boards.
• A systems thinker and builder who designs infrastructure that is appropriately scaled for the organization's current stage while anticipating future growth and complexity.
• Comfortable balancing strategic leadership with hands-on execution, particularly in fast-moving organizations where ambiguity, thoughtful prioritization, and resource constraints are expected.
• A collaborative leader who develops high-performing teams, builds trusted partnerships across functions, and holds both internal staff and external partners accountable for results.
• Experience in global health, international development, or similarly complex mission-driven organizations is valued, but exceptional candidates from other sectors with relevant experience are encouraged to apply.
• A CPA is preferred but not required. Candidates without a CPA should demonstrate substantial experience overseeing complex accounting, audit, controls, and compliance functions through strong internal finance leadership and/or external accounting partners.

What You Bring

• Ability to scale lean, credible financial systems.
• Strong judgment on build vs. outsource decisions.
• Strategic and hands-on execution capability.
• Experience in global health, development, or complex mission-driven environments preferred.
• Experience with public-private funding models or large-scale philanthropy preferred.
• Strong communication skills, translating complex finance into practical decisions.

What This Role Offers

• A rare opportunity to take a high-potential early-stage institution from strong initial foundations to scaled global impact.
• The chance to shape how a major public-private platform is built, scaled, and has a global impact.
• A mission-driven, entrepreneurial environment with significant ambition and institutional complexity.
• Close partnership with senior leadership, philanthropy, and policymakers.
• Competitive compensation commensurate with the role's seniority, complexity, and scope.
• A comprehensive benefits package designed to support your health, financial stability, and life outside of work (including medical, dental, vision, leave, and retirement planning).

Compensation includes robust benefits and cash compensation in the $175K-$300K range.