--- title: 'Director of Strategic Finance at Nift' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-strategic-finance-nift-united-states-xzyvdkt106x2' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-06' --- # Director of Strategic Finance at Nift - **Company:** Nift - **Location:** United States - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-10-20 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-06 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/nift/jobs/5266899007 ## Job description The short version Nift is a profitable, roughly 60-person company with $50M+ in annual revenue, and our finance function hasn't caught up to the business yet. We're hiring our first Director of Strategic Finance to own planning and forecasting end to end, and to rebuild how finance gets its numbers. That second part matters. Today, too much of our finance work runs through spreadsheets, manual uploads, and vendor-by-vendor cleanup. You'll have an engineering partner, budget for tools, and a Head of Finance who wants to review your model, not build it. If you write your own SQL, think in three statements, and get a kick out of replacing a manual process with one that runs itself, keep reading. This is a director role on purpose. It's built for a strong senior manager or director who wants full ownership and more headroom, not a large team to delegate to. ## About Nift Nift’s mission is to reshape how people discover and try new brands by introducing them to new products and services through thoughtful "thank-you" gifts. Our customer-first approach ensures businesses acquire new customers efficiently while making customers feel valued and rewarded. We are a data-driven, cash-flow-positive company that has experienced 731% growth over the last three years. Now, we’re scaling to become one of the largest sources for new customer acquisition worldwide. Backed by [Spark Capital](https://www.sparkcapital.com/) & [Foundry](https://foundry.vc/) who also invested in Slack, Snap, SeatGeek, Fitbit, Warby Parker, Wayfair and Twitter, we are poised for exponential growth and ready to demonstrate impact on a global scale. Read more about our growth [here](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251119582928/en/Nift-Ranked-Number-120-Fastest-Growing-Company-in-North-America-on-the-2025-Deloitte-Technology-Fast-500). ## What you'll own The job has three parts, in this order of priority. 1. Planning and forecasting, end to end - Run the annual operating plan. Build the departmental OpEx and headcount templates, walk each leader through them, and turn their inputs into one driver-based plan. - Own the operating model: revenue, gross profit, OpEx, headcount, EBITDA, working capital, and cash, plus a 3 to 5-year long-range plan. - Reforecast on a regular cadence and run monthly budget-vs-actual reviews with department heads, so we know where every team is pacing before the quarter ends. - Own short- and long-term cash flow forecasting, including collections and payment timing. - Build the monthly reporting package and the Board materials with the Head of Finance. When the Board asks why R&D spend is under plan, you have the answer and the story behind it (for example, hires landing later than planned). 1. Finance systems, automation, and process - Lead the move from spreadsheet-driven finance operations to automated, system-to-system workflows. Current examples: connecting our database to our invoicing platform via API, and automating partner payout calculations into payables. - Partner with an engineer on the product team: write the requirements, define the logic, check the numbers, and run user acceptance testing until it works the way finance needs it to. - Define how the general ledger should be structured so leadership gets the cost visibility it needs (by team, function, and initiative, not just broad class), then work with accounting on the cleanup and on keeping new entries coded correctly. - Evaluate and select finance tools, such as a planning platform, where they earn their keep. - Use AI where it actually saves time: variance commentary, data validation, recurring reporting. 1. Analysis that drives decisions - Measure payback on our sales investment by team (enterprise and mid-market) in months, not adjectives. - Build advertiser and partner cohort, retention, and spend-distribution analysis by segment. - Turn open-ended questions into a clear point of view. "Is this campaign working?" "Model this new business line." "Show investors our partners are sticky." You decide the right methodology (for example, when a short pilot should be excluded from retention), document it, and tell the story the data supports. - Write your own SQL against our production data (read access) and your own finance schema. No waiting on a data team for a pull. ## Your first year First 90 days: take ownership of the operating model and the annual plan, run your first monthly close review with accounting, and deliver your first reporting package and Board pack. By month 6: a driver-based plan and rolling forecast that leaders actually use to make decisions. A monthly cadence where the books close on a predictable timeline and variances are explained, not just reported. At least one manual workflow (invoicing or partner payouts) running system to system. By month 12: cash forecasting you trust, a ledger structure that answers "what does this team cost?" without manual rework, sales payback and cohort analysis on a regular rhythm, and a finance function that runs without the Head of Finance doing the day-to-day. ## What you bring Must-haves - 7+ years in FP&A or strategic finance. Investment banking or transaction advisory works too, as long as you've since owned planning and forecasting in an operating company. - Strong, hands-on SQL. You query, join, and reconcile messy data yourself. Using AI to write queries is great; it doesn't replace knowing what the query should do. - Full ownership of a P&L's planning, either at a smaller company or for a division that ran like its own business. You've owned the whole model, not one line of it. - Mastery of the three statements and how the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow connect. - A track record of building something in finance that didn't exist before: a process, a model, a reporting pipeline, or an automation. - The ability to turn analysis into a clear recommendation for a CEO or a Board. Nice-to-haves - Experience in performance marketing, adtech, martech, ecommerce, consumer, SaaS, or another data-heavy, variable-cost business. - Cohort, retention, LTV, and unit economics work. - Exposure to finance systems projects: invoicing, payables, planning tools, or an ERP rollout, including working with engineers and running UAT. - Board reporting or investor materials. What doesn't matter: your degree or where you went to school. A philosophy major with a decade of great FP&A work is a strong candidate. Is this for you? We'd rather be upfront than oversell it. This role is not: - Accounting. Our accounting team runs the close, AP/AR, payroll, and the audit relationship. You'll partner with them on close reviews, audit schedules, and data quality, but you won't run the books. - A deal job. We're profitable and not raising right now, and there's little M&A. You'll support the Board and investors, but if you want a steady diet of transaction modeling, this isn't it. - A role with a team underneath you on day one. You'll build and run the work yourself. A team may come as the function grows. You'll love it here if: you see a messy, manual process and want to be the one who fixes it. You'd rather be handed a blank page ("build the business case") than a checklist. And you're excited, not annoyed, that some of the basics still need to be built. It probably isn't a fit if: you're used to directing a team and want to keep doing that, or you'd see this title as a step sideways. ## About Nift ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Nift helps platforms and brands turn moments of appreciation into powerful customer experiences by delivering AI-matched, personalized thank-you gifts that drive discovery and measurable business results. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A; total funding $19.5M) - **Headquarters**: Boston, Massachusetts, United States - **Founded**: 2014 - **Founders**: Not publicly available ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Performance marketing / advertising services (gift-based customer acquisition) - **Target customers**: B2B (platforms like Afterpay, Klarna, Tripadvisor, Ticketmaster; brands like Fabletics, Chewy, Harry’s, HelloFresh) - **Mission**: “Elevate gratitude through thoughtful gifts, forging meaningful connections, and empowering businesses to thrive together.” ## Products & Services - **Nift Platform**: An AI-powered performance marketing platform that enables partner platforms to reward their users with curated gift cards from a network of thousands of brands. Consumers receive a “thank-you” gift after completing an action (purchase, signup, review, milestone); Nift’s proprietary AI matches each user with relevant gift options based on preferences and availability. The result is a measurable lift in customer acquisition and loyalty for brands, and higher engagement for platforms. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: Annual revenue of $7M (LinkedIn estimate); $19.5M total funding raised across two seed rounds and a Series A - **Notable Investors**: Spark Capital (seed), Foundry Group, Accomplice (Series A lead) - **Notable Partners**: Afterpay, Klarna, Tripadvisor, Ticketmaster, Meetup, Mindbody, ParkMobile, iHeartRadio; brands include Fabletics, Chewy, Harry’s, HelloFresh, Allbirds, Rocksbox, Quip, Scentbird, LiquidIV, SiriusXM - **Growth Signals**: Delivers 50 million+ thank-yous per month across the U.S., UK, and Canada; recognized by Deloitte as one of North America’s fastest-growing technology companies; headcount grew 22.3% YoY (to ~53 employees), operating in 7 countries; recent job postings up 240% year-over-year; expanding into EMEA (hiring General Manager, UK) ## Competitive Advantages - **AI-driven matching** that increases conversion rates (up to 10%) and drives 70% of consumers to plan purchases from discovered brands - **Network effects** – a curated marketplace of thousands of brands and millions of consumers, creating a “gratitude flywheel” that benefits all parties - **Seamless integration** with high-engagement platforms, turning thank-you moments into incremental revenue streams - **Proven outcomes** – 72% of consumers feel more positively about the platform that rewarded them ## Strategic Focus - Deepen partnerships with leading consumer platforms and expand into new verticals and geographies (U.K., Australia, Canada) - Scale the brand network and improve AI personalization to increase conversion and lifetime value - Continue investing in data science and engineering to maintain competitive advantage in targeting and measurement ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Fully remote across all 50 U.S. states (and Israel); emphasis on innovation, transparency, respect, and data-driven decision-making - **Benefits**: Comprehensive health, dental, vision insurance; equity for all full-time employees; unlimited responsible PTO; quarterly team meetups, trivia nights, and an annual company-wide offsite - **Growth**: Opportunities for advancement based on performance and impact; roles in data science, sales, finance, people, and more - **Team**: ~53 employees (LinkedIn) with a flat structure; rated 3.9/5 on employer reviews with a 4.3/5 for work-life balance - **Values**: “We treat everyone with respect. Period.” – a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion ## Sources 1. [Greenhouse Jobs Page](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/nift) 2. [Nift Careers Page](https://www.gonift.com/business/careers/) 3. [Nift Main Website](https://www.gonift.com/) 4. [LinkedIn Company Page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/nift-networks) 5. [Built In Boston Profile](https://www.builtinboston.com/company/nift) ## Other roles at Nift - [Partner Success Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/partner-success-manager-nift-united-kingdom-e4jf6w3875s8) — United Kingdom - [Partner Success Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/partner-success-manager-nift-united-states-k6r5zdgjrrjk) — United States - [Account Executive, Mid-Market Partnerships](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-mid-market-partnerships-nift-united-states-rxcxg0025kr8) — United States - [Sales Director, Mid-Market](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-director-mid-market-nift-united-states-b7nzw8x0h8d3) — United States - [ML Ops Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ml-ops-engineer-nift-israel-5zb6fy5ds9q8) — Israel - [Sales/Account Executive — Performance Marketing / DTC Brands (Remote)](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-account-executive-performance-marketing-dtc-brands-remote-nift-united-5rcswmz24w0n) — United States - [Executive Assistant to the CEO](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-assistant-to-the-ceo-nift-united-states-9t3mpbbx5x99) — United States - [Applied Data Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/applied-data-scientist-nift-israel-t0dm80sb7v31) — Israel - [Data Analyst](https://feeny.ai/job/data-analyst-nift-israel-41xep38wtdzr) — Israel - [Sales Director, Partnerships](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-director-partnerships-nift-united-states-fq2y2t45qvxr) — United States