---
title: 'Head of Strategic Finance & Planning at Zed'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-strategic-finance-planning-zed-san-francisco-2cmemevspz5v'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-02'
---

# Head of Strategic Finance & Planning at Zed

- **Company:** Zed
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-09-25
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-02
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zedfinancial/16c97a08-04bd-4c47-96e0-a0cba5cd190a

## Job description

## About Zed

Zed is building the first AI-native, licensed neobank in the Philippines designed to democratize access to premium financial services for young professionals in global markets. The current banking system is broken, often shutting out the world’s youngest and fastest-growing consumer classes—we’re here to fix it. Our team is uniquely positioned to solve this. We are Stanford engineers and former YC founders who have spent our careers at the intersection of banking and hyper-growth startups like Square, Facebook, and Box. We’ve been here before, having previously built and exited Symple (YC W'17), a fast-growing B2B payments company. We are backed by world-class investors, including Accel, Valar, Immad Akhund (Mercury), Dalton Caldwell (Y Combinator), and Kunal Shah (Cred).

## The Role

As Zed grows, we’re making increasingly consequential decisions about where to invest, how to fund growth, and what it will take to build a durable, profitable business. We’re hiring a Head of Strategic Finance & Planning to build the financial models, planning discipline, and business insight behind those decisions. Reporting directly to our CEO, you’ll own financial planning across our US and Philippine entities and work closely with the founders on resource allocation, fundraising, and long-term strategy. You’ll connect customer growth and credit portfolio performance to our operating plan, cash needs, and funding requirements—and turn that analysis into clear recommendations. This is a hands-on builder role and an individual-contributor position to start. You’ll build and maintain the models yourself, establish our budgeting and forecasting cadence, and partner with our Philippines finance team to create a reliable view of company performance. In your first six months, you’ll establish our core planning process, build the models supporting our next fundraise, and give the founders a clearer view of where we’re performing, where we’re exposed, and where to invest next.

## What You'll Do

- Own financial planning across Zed’s US and Philippine entities, including budgeting, forecasting, cash and runway planning, and long-range planning
- Build and maintain the models that connect customer growth, card usage, credit losses, funding costs, and operating expenses to unit economics, cash needs, and a path to profitability
- Partner directly with the CEO and founders to evaluate where to invest, how quickly to grow, and which trade-offs to make—turning analysis into clear recommendations on hiring, spending, and new business opportunities
- Establish a practical planning and reporting cadence that helps leaders understand performance against plan, identify what’s changing, and decide when to adjust course
- Own the financial models and materials supporting fundraising, board reporting, and investor updates, with clear assumptions and a financial narrative grounded in business performance
- Support capital and balance sheet planning in partnership with Finance, Risk, and Compliance, including scenarios that show how changes in growth, credit performance, and funding affect the business
- Partner with our Philippines finance team, which owns accounting, controllership, and regulatory compliance for that entity, to bring reliable financial data into a consolidated view of company performance
- Work with Data and functional leaders to define consistent business metrics, understand the drivers behind the numbers, and build tools and processes that fit Zed’s stage

## What You Bring

- Private equity experience, particularly evaluating businesses, pressure-testing assumptions, and developing investment recommendations
- Experience at a bank, lender, or other regulated financial institution, including credit economics, capital planning, or balance sheet management
- Experience supporting a fundraise or working directly with a board and outside investors
- Experience with multi-entity or cross-border finance, particularly across the US and Asia

Nice to have:

- Private equity experience, particularly evaluating businesses, pressure-testing assumptions, and developing investment recommendations
- Experience at a bank, lender, or other regulated financial institution, including credit economics, capital planning, or balance sheet management
- Experience supporting a fundraise, preparing board materials, or working directly with outside investors
- Experience with multi-entity or cross-border finance, particularly across the US and Asia

We hire exceptional people from diverse backgrounds because different perspectives build better products. If you’re excited about this role but don’t check every box, apply anyway. We value potential, ownership, and alignment with our values more than perfect résumés. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate based on legally protected characteristics. We provide reasonable accommodations throughout the hiring process. Compensation includes salary, equity, and benefits. Final offers are based on role scope, location, and experience.

## About Zed

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zed builds a modern, AI-powered credit card and financial platform designed for young professionals in Southeast Asia, offering no-interest credit, unlimited virtual cards, and transparent fees.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A; total funding $22.5M)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States (with operations in Manila, Philippines)
- **Founded**: Year not publicly stated; launched in Philippines in 2024
- **Founders**: Steve Abraham (Co-founder) & Danielle Cojuangco Abraham (Co-founder & Co-CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Financial Services (Consumer Fintech)
- **Target customers**: B2C; specifically young, college-educated professionals in Southeast Asia (Generation Z and Millennials) who are underserved by traditional credit systems.
- **Mission statement**: "To build a bank for the next generation that feels like a great private banker," unlocking wealth creation for young people by democratizing access to responsible credit.

## Products & Services
- **[Zed Credit Card]**: A premium Titanium Mastercard with no interest, no foreign transaction fees, and unlimited virtual cards. Features include a data-driven application process that uses AI to underwrite creditworthiness from non-traditional data (transaction data, financial documents), flexible installment plans, instant card locking, and single-use virtual cards for online security. Type: Fintech product (credit card + mobile app).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$22.5M** (Seed: $6M led by Valar Ventures; Series A: $16.5M led by Accel). Waitlist has nearly **200,000 sign-ups**; customer base has **grown by 10x** and monthly Gross Merchandise Value (spend) has grown by **~500%** since the beginning of 2025.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Accel, Valar Ventures, Immad Akhund (CEO of Mercury), Dalton Caldwell (former Y Combinator). Issued in partnership with Mastercard. Regulated by the Philippine Central Bank (BSP).
- **Growth Signals**: Rapid growth in user base and transaction volume; Series A round led by top-tier VC Accel; strong word-of-mouth waitlist; expansion of an AI-driven underwriting model targeting a massive underserved market (200M+ college-educated young professionals in emerging Asia). The team has grown **+35% YoY** (13 employees).

## Competitive Advantages
- **AI-native underwriting**: Uses foundational models to assess creditworthiness from alternative data (transaction history, financial documents) rather than relying on thin or nonexistent traditional credit bureau files. This unlocks credit for a huge "unscoreable" demographic.
- **Bespoke product for a generation**: The card is designed specifically for the spending habits of young Southeast Asians (travel, online shopping, peer-to-peer payments) with features like no foreign transaction fees and unlimited virtual cards.
- **Founder-market fit & licensing**: Founded by Stanford-educated engineers with deep fintech expertise (Symple, Y Combinator, Box) and local market knowledge. The company holds a financial institution license from the BSP, a significant regulatory moat.
- **Purpose-built tech stack**: Building a modern bank from scratch, free from legacy infrastructure, allowing for AI-driven, safety-critical consumer systems and multi-currency payments.

## Strategic Focus
- **Expand AI-driven credit products**: The current underwriting model is just the first application; the company plans to leverage proprietary AI models to build a wider suite of banking services for its target demographic.
- **Scale in Southeast Asia**: Currently focused on the Philippines as a beachhead market, with a long-term goal of serving young consumers across the region and globally.
- **Hire for product & engineering**: Actively recruiting product-minded engineers, designers, data scientists, and operations staff to build the core platform.
- **Key priorities**: Real-time credit decisioning with sparse data, building safety-critical consumer systems, multi-currency payments, and AI-driven customer experiences.

## Why Work Here
- **High-impact mission**: Opportunity to build a fundamental piece of financial infrastructure for a generation of 200M+ underserved young professionals in Asia.
- **Talent & culture**: The team is described as "ambitious" and "radically honest," composed of Stanford engineers and veterans from Square, Google, Stripe, Facebook, and Box. The environment is "people-first" and focused on technical excellence.
- **Work model**: Hybrid/Office for different teams. Product, Design, and Engineering teams are headquartered in **San Francisco**, while Operations and Risk are based in **Manila**.
- **Backing and stability**: Backed by top-tier investors (Accel, Valar) and key fintech leaders, providing strong financial runway and strategic guidance.
- **Cutting-edge work**: Engineers work on hard problems like AI underwriting, real-time credit, and multi-currency payments with the latest tools (foundational models, agent infrastructure).

## Sources
1. [zed.co](https://www.zed.co/)
2. [LinkedIn - Zed](https://www.linkedin.com/company/zedfinancial)
3. [Zed - Series A Announcement](https://www.zed.co/announcement-series-a/)
4. [Zed - Company Page](https://www.zed.co/company/)
5. [Zed - Careers Page](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zedfinancial)
6. [Zed - Card Page](https://www.zed.co/)

## Other roles at Zed

- [Lead Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-product-designer-zed-san-francisco-bc3vavgakga1) — San Francisco, CA
- [Partnerships Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/partnerships-lead-zed-manila-zwf9wkssaxth) — Manila, Philippines
- [Senior ML Data Scientist (Credit Risk)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-ml-data-scientist-credit-risk-zed-san-francisco-5ajvgnd0y8s6) — San Francisco, CA
- [AI Engineer, Agent Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-agent-infrastructure-zed-san-francisco-7vmbp3jws5x3) — San Francisco, CA
- [Product Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/product-engineer-zed-san-francisco-68gj119nab78) — San Francisco, CA
- [Data Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/data-scientist-zed-manila-y8xamvdpgzgn) — Manila, Philippines