Finance and Performance Lead (Employee # 4)

HumanCentric is looking for a financially-savvy and results-driven individual to take ownership of our financial and operational performance as we go through a period of rapid growth and expansion. You will be employee number four, and a critical part of our entrepreneurial team.  You must be detail-oriented and execution-focused, as your data-driven insights will help us grow revenue, increase profits, and improve operations. This includes drawing insights from financial data, website analytics, advertising spend analysis, customer segmentation, and operational data.

This position is perfect for someone with 1-2 years experience who has shown an exceptional aptitude for identifying issues and opportunities based on detailed analysis and implementing the appropriate solutions. Appropriate experience would be a consulting role or similar background.

Please note that this position is:

• Not a good position for a seasoned manager or executive. We're a small (but profitable) startup, and you'll need the skills to dig deep into the details. If you're used to having a team take care of the "small stuff" for you, you're not a good match.
• Not an IT or data science position. It's unlikely you're a match if you have an MIS degree.
• Not an "operational finance" role. It's much more than AP / AR / financial statement preparation. (We have accountants and bookkeepers that do that.)

HumanCentric was founded in 2015 and is a profitable, high-growth, eCommerce brand. We offer solutions to help consumers organize their home and office technology to create well-designed and comfortable space for both work and play. We ship hundreds of orders each day to customers around the world, and are run by a small and driven team who makes it all come together. Each team member has a critical role, and will be involved in almost every area of the business.

To be a great fit for this job, you must have:

• Exceptional data analysis skills. You can quickly work with large amounts of data, finding and correcting errors, drawing high-level conclusions, and identifying actionable plans.
• 1-3 years experience in a consulting role or similar background.
• The ability to work both quickly and methodically. You create tremendous amounts of accurate, finished work much faster than other people you work with.
• The word "purple" mentioned in your cover letter.
• A positive attitude and the ability to tackle large tasks with ease.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Extremely good organizational skills and careful attention to detail.
• The desire and independence to work in a lean, small-company environment.
• The ability to quickly learn new software programs when needed.
• A degree in business, finance, operations, or engineering

Your responsibilities will include:

• Understanding key business drivers and determining actionable reporting for the business. These reports - as well as your insight into our strategy - will help you continue to drive improved performance, month after month.
  • Includes drawing insights from financial data, website analytics, advertising spend analysis, customer segmentation, and operational data
• Based on your ongoing analysis of business performance, collaborating with various functions, such as accounting, compliance, product development, logistics, marketing, software integration, and order fulfillment to identify operational improvements and implement corrective actions.
• Developing ongoing operational processes that will help us run smoothly, ensure accurate financial reporting, and increase our insight into business performance.

Had you been with us last month, you would have...

• Performed a comprehensive return rate analysis on our products, then worked with engineering, manufacturing, and fulfillment to put a plan in place to reduce it.
• Worked with our accounting, compliance, and software integration teams to audit our domestic and international tax reporting data. This would have required you to learn the tax methodology of each jurisdiction, understand the integration between our various systems, and implement necessary corrective actions and quality checks to make sure that the process runs correctly (with minimal intervention) in the future.
• Created a monthly operations calendar to ensure that all key procedures are performed in a timely and effective manner.
• Defined your own improvement projects based on your insight into the business, and produced measurable outcomes (increased revenue, profits, or efficiency).
• Worked with our accounting team to attribute operational costs in a way that gives us the most accurate financial insight into our business
• Worked with our fulfillment operations team to audit fulfillment costs and ensure that they are correct on an ongoing basis.
• Worked with our marketing team to analyze customer data to inform social media marketing campaigns

Benefits Include:

• Comprehensive health and dental plan
• Awesome, flexible paid vacation policy
• Beautiful, newly-renovated office in Skokie
• Work closely with a small, experienced team and gain exposure to all aspects of running a global products company and eCommerce brand