---
title: 'Head of Financial Planning & Analysis at Canonical'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-financial-planning-analysis-canonical-americas-emea-london-united-txfz914gv952'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-16'
---

# Head of Financial Planning & Analysis at Canonical

- **Company:** Canonical
- **Location:** Americas / EMEA / London, United Kingdom
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-10-05
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/canonical/jobs/8142970

## Job description

We are hiring for the Head of Financial Planning & Analysis, to lead the global FP&A Teams and be a leader within the wider finance team. You will play a key part leading our monthly business reviews and forecasting, annual planning, and continuously drive cross-functional business alignment, as well as develop the long term roadmap for the FP&A team. Our ideal candidate is a highly analytical independent thinker, who has a proven record of leading a team to use data analysis to advise on critical financial, commercial and strategic decisions.

Our business opportunity is significant; we can deliver both infrastructure and business applications to the enterprise market. As companies refresh their data centers, our goal is to be the platform for cloud and apps. As they re-architect their business applications to embrace open source, our goal is to deliver the majority of their databases, analytics, messaging, publishing, identity, security, workflow... everything that is open source. We are committed to do that at the most efficient price points possible to drive down the total cost of IT, but this is nevertheless a significant global market, and our ambition is to be counted among the most valued software suppliers to the Global 10,000.

Location: This is a remote role in AMER or EMEA time zones, with the option to be based in our London office.

## The role entails

- Develop executive reporting dashboards and documents including Board reporting, monthly financial results and other management presentations
- Analyse & Report monthly results, leading indicators and KPIs to support monthly forecasting and annual plan attainment
- Provide commercial analysis, develop growth targets, and evaluate strategic initiatives
- Work with product managers to produce, aggregate, and distribute both market insights and competitive intelligence
- Manage financial models, including budgeting, forecasting, and long range planning
- Drive improvements in data analysis, and determine the appropriate processes, methodologies, and modeling techniques to deliver insights.
- Partner with Accounting and Investor Relations to support month end close, flux review processes, and financial reporting
- Drive multi-functional change projects designed to enhance systems, processes, and data accuracy
- Play a key role in preparation of critical public financial documents to support an IPO process, including supporting the production of investor materials and public filings
- Guide the annual FP&A activity calendar to provide decision support to the executive team
- Mentor colleagues within the FP&A team, as well as peer teams
- Control costs via methodical reviews of department spend, procurement strategies, and business wide process efficiency

## What we are looking for in you

- An exceptional academic track record
- Experience and a deeply rooted passion to lead successful team members, and aid in their career growth
- Have operated in a high growth, multi currency/geography technology business with a mixed go-to-market motion
- Strong problem-solving and analytical abilities
- Highest ethical standards, integrity, authenticity, credibility, and character
- Curiosity and willingness to work on a wide range of projects
- Proficiency in spreadsheets, financial modeling, and BI tools
- Understanding of core accounting principles
- Professional written and spoken English
- Excellent interpersonal skills, curiosity, flexibility, and accountability
- Passionate, thoughtful, and self-motivated
- Result-oriented, with a personal drive to meet and exceed commitments
- International travel 2-4 times a year for company events up to two weeks long

Nice-to-have skills

- MBA or equivalent combination of professional certifications and experience
- Previous experience as a subject matter expert in Financial Planning & Analysis
- Experience with Business Intelligence reporting, CRM and ERP systems

## What we offer colleagues

We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We assess performance and revisit compensation twice annually to ensure we recognize outstanding colleagues. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus or commission. We provide all team members with additional benefits which reflect our values and ideals. We balance our programs to meet local needs and ensure fairness globally.

- Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person
- Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year
- Bi-annual compensation review
- Company recognition rewards
- 40 days annual leave per annum, including public holidays and our All Company holiday periods
- Maternity and paternity leave
- Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform
- Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues, with Priority Pass for lounge access

## About Canonical

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. Our platform, Ubuntu, is very widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation, and IoT. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors. We are founder-led, profitable, and growing.

Powered by worldwide distributed collaboration since our inception in 2004, we believe tech and business leadership can emerge anywhere. We have no central headquarters. Most of us work from home, but we are exceptionally disciplined about this. We have very high expectations of all colleagues, and are champions of excellence. Working here is a step into the future and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game.

Canonical is an equal opportunity employer

We are proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and background create a better work environment and better products. [Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.](https://canonical.com/careers/diversity/identity)

## About Canonical

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Canonical publishes Ubuntu and delivers trusted open source software, security, and support to enterprises worldwide.
- **Entity Type**: Private (founder-funded, bootstrapped)
- **Headquarters**: Not publicly available in provided sources (commonly reported as London, UK)
- **Founded**: 2004
- **Founders**: Mark Shuttleworth

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Enterprise open source software, cloud infrastructure, and security.
- Target customers: B2B – enterprises, cloud providers, developers, and government organizations.
- Mission statement: "We amplify the impact of open source" – helping people and organizations tap into the power of open source to develop new products with speed and confidence.

## Products & Services
- **Ubuntu**: The world’s most popular Linux distribution for desktops, servers, and IoT.
- **Ubuntu Pro**: A single subscription providing security maintenance, compliance features, and support for the entire open source portfolio.
- **OpenStack**: Canonical’s distribution of the open source cloud platform for private and hybrid clouds.
- **Kubernetes (MicroK8s, Charmed Kubernetes)**: Lightweight and production-grade Kubernetes solutions.
- **Landscape**: Systems management and compliance tool for Ubuntu deployments.
- **LXD**: System container manager for running full Linux systems in containers.
- **Netplan**: Network configuration utility for Linux.
- **Vanilla Framework**: Open source CSS framework developed by Canonical’s web and design teams.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding – not applicable (bootstrapped). Annual revenue – not publicly available.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Founder Mark Shuttleworth is the primary investor. Partners include major cloud providers and hardware vendors (not explicitly listed in provided sources).
- **Growth Signals**: Scaled engineering headcount from 600 to 950 engineers (per blog post). Remote-first since inception in 2004. Over 80 nationalities represented.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Ubuntu ecosystem**: De facto standard for cloud and developer environments.
- **Remote-first culture**: Fully distributed since 2004, attracting global talent.
- **Open source leadership**: Deep involvement in communities (OpenStack, Kubernetes, etc.) and strong brand trust.
- **End-to-end portfolio**: From OS to applications, with consistent security maintenance for up to 15 years.
- **Rigorous hiring**: Manual, human-reviewed process that prioritizes culture fit and potential.

## Strategic Focus
- Expand enterprise adoption of Ubuntu Pro and managed open source services.
- Maintain leadership in cloud, container, and edge computing.
- Strengthen security and compliance offerings for regulated industries.
- Continue investing in open source communities and upstream projects.

## Why Work Here
- **Remote-first**: Truly distributed company with no central office; team members work from anywhere.
- **Culture**: Values of reliability, accessibility, precision, and adroitness. Emphasis on collaboration and open source ethos.
- **Small teams, big impact**: Engineering organized into nimble squads (950 engineers across ~50 teams) prioritizing agility and deep expertise.
- **Diversity**: Team from over 80 nationalities; equal opportunity employer.
- **Career progression**: Focus on impact and potential over rigid experience thresholds; opportunities to shift roles if a better fit is found.
- **Perks**: Personal development budget, learning opportunities, and a global, inclusive environment.

## Sources
1. [canonical.com/careers](https://canonical.com/careers)
2. [canonical.com/company](https://canonical.com/company)
3. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/canonical](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/canonical)
4. [canonical.com/blog/hiring-the-canonical-way](https://canonical.com/blog/hiring-the-canonical-way)

## Other roles at Canonical

- [Graduate Software Engineer, Open Source and Linux, Canonical Ubuntu](https://feeny.ai/job/graduate-software-engineer-open-source-and-linux-canonical-ubuntu-canonical-3hvy5tcdxkqy) — Worldwide
- [General Counsel (remote)](https://feeny.ai/job/general-counsel-remote-canonical-emea-z53bj7rgexqm) — EMEA
- [Software Quality Assurance Engineer - Linux, PC, IoT](https://feeny.ai/job/software-quality-assurance-engineer-linux-pc-iot-canonical-beijing-bsdcg0qt8hrm) — Beijing, China
- [Engineering Manager - Distributed Systems, Python / Go](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-distributed-systems-python-go-canonical-americas-emea-nf53ngg5zg6b) — Americas / EMEA
- [General Counsel (Office based)](https://feeny.ai/job/general-counsel-office-based-canonical-london-dmef8jpbhbec) — London, United Kingdom
- [Product Marketing Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/product-marketing-lead-canonical-emea-qk0gyzms14h4) — EMEA
- [Internal Auditor](https://feeny.ai/job/internal-auditor-canonical-americas-emea-london-united-kingdom-8t3cv1ty4prb) — Americas / EMEA / London, United Kingdom
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