Director of Finance

Company Description

KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) is a national network of free, open enrollment, college preparatory schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities for success in college and in life. There are 280 KIPP schools in 21 states and the District of Columbia serving more than 175,000 scholars and alumni. KIPP Metro Atlanta currently operates twelve schools including five primary schools, six middle schools and one high school, as well as KIPP Forward which supports students on their journey “to and through” college, career and beyond. The KIPP Metro Atlanta Regional Support Team provides strategic, financial and operational support and oversight to all KIPP Metro Atlanta schools and drives initiatives designed to strengthen the schools’ academic programming and outcomes.

Job Description

KIPP Metro Atlanta seeks an experienced and knowledgeable, hands-on Director who will design, lead, and manage all daily financial planning and analysis for a $125M+ annual budget, including four legal entities. The Director will manage the execution of the annual budget process and systems, support the organization’s financial health by providing financial reports and dashboards, and support the organization’s growth by managing the long-term financial model.

Reporting directly to the CFO, the Director will work closely with the Finance Team, school-based Directors of Operations, and regional leadership team members to ensure accurate and effective budget management across multiple entities and funds, maximize revenue, and develop regional procurement processes, while creating standard operating procedures that ensure financial accuracy and provide maximum benefit to the organization. The Director will also contribute to planning for strategic growth in evaluating the financial implications of facilities financing and growth. The Director will manage the regional Finance Manager and regional Finance Analyst.

This job description is intended to describe the type of work being performed by a person assigned to this position. It is not an exhaustive list of all duties and responsibilities required by the employee.

Finance Team Leadership and Management

• Designs coaching sessions for direct reports to ensure they are meeting their performance metrics and development goals. Conducts regular performance evaluations for teammates.
• Leads team meetings to uphold finance team culture and manages capacity to ensure the team is meeting its goals and the needs of the larger organization.
• Supports direct reports’ development by providing feedback and conducting training on new skills 
• Manages major federal grant (CARES) reimbursement process, monitoring data to identify potential errors, escalate to district partners when necessary
• Builds and maintains relationships with district team to ensure compliance with various finance-related requests and requirements
• Partners with CFO and Controller in leadership of finance function for the organization; informing the the department’s annual plans and executing the finance function’s annual plan; regularly reviewing key performance indicators and course-correcting when needed

Modeling Revenue and Expense Parameters

• Designs a flexible, multi-year, complex financial model and updates it as events and new inputs change 
• Monitors news and state legislature updates about events that will impact revenue 
• Monitors APS board meetings and budget commission for updates to forecasted revenue and expenses
• Monitors enrollment to gauge financial implications, communicating them to stakeholders throughout the enrollment season 
• Develops and leads a values-based budget building process, including spending parameters and allocation methodology 
• Leads and manages the execution of the budget development process including training for ~50 stakeholders dispersed across the organization
• Evaluates new spending requests as they arise through the year
• Ensures correctness of per-pupil district calculations and follow-up with district partners for corrections as needed 
• Monitors major compliance submission (CPI) and estimate financial impact

Building and Improving Tools

• Designs new tools and dashboards using our reporting solution, Vena, to support compliance with finance process and policy, and user access to and analysis of data
• Collaborates with and supports improvements to other functions’ processes for improvement (example: deposit logs)
• Acts as expert in troubleshooting bugs in Vena budget management tool 

Analyzing Financials, Troubleshooting Errors and Ad Hoc Analysis

• Performs monthly budget-to-actuals analysis for entire organization ($125MM budget), sharing findings with CFO and designing strategies for g