Senior Director, Finance - Product & Technology

Xero is a beautiful, easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors grow and thrive. 

At Xero, our purpose is to make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. This purpose sits at the centre of everything we do. We support our people to do the best work of their lives so that they can help small businesses succeed through better tools, information and connections. Because when they succeed they make a difference, and when millions of small businesses are making a difference, the world is a more beautiful place.

How you’ll make an impact

As Senior Director of Product & Technology Finance, you will lead our financial planning and analysis efforts across Xero’s Product & Technology function and partner closely with senior leaders to provide valuable insights and recommendations. You will be responsible for developing and executing financial strategies that align with Xero’s ambitious product objectives.  

Working with your team, you will oversee all financial planning and analysis across Cost to Serve, Product, Technology and Engineering sub-functions, ensuring a relentless focus on commercial outcomes. This will involve tailoring your approach to the unique requirements of each area, fostering a culture of critical evaluation and justification for capital allocation decisions.  As a senior member of the Financial Planning and Analysis team, you will also champion business casing, accurate forecasting, and workforce planning, thereby becoming a driving force behind our financial success.

What you’ll do

Financial Strategy

Develop and articulate a clear financial strategy for the Product & Technology function, ensuring alignment with Xero's overarching business objectives and OKR's. Implement the integration of financial and operational data into decision-making processes. Ensure budgeting and forecasting are aligned with broader company objectives. Collaborate with People Experience on remuneration strategies for the function.

Financial Planning and Analysis

Lead financial planning cycles for the Product & Technology function, collaborating on operating plans, roadmaps and annual targets. Cultivate commercial acumen and critical thinking within the Product & Technology team, ensuring investment requests are tied to measurable financial results. Coordinate long-term planning inputs for Product portfolios, demonstrating deep understanding of business drivers and financial modeling implications.

Financial Modeling

Create and maintain sophisticated financial models to assess potential scenarios, risks, and opportunities, and support strategic decision making. Design a framework for business case benefits realization. Build and iterate on Product P&Ls, ensuring strong decision making on capital allocations. Assist the leadership team in assessing financial risks associated with project delivery.

Capital Allocation

Evaluate and optimize capital allocation strategies, including investment in new initiatives,  capital expenditures and, where applicable, acquisitions. Support and challenge leaders on capital allocation decisions and facilitate effective capital requests with a strong ROI focus. Ensure tracking of committed business cases to monitor delivery and financial milestones.

Team Leadership

Build, mentor, and manage a high-performing team, fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement

Stakeholder Engagement

Provide financial insights and guidance to support decision-making across the organization. Drive business performance through influencing leaders and actionable financial analysis. Collaborate with the wider FP&A leadership team to ensure alignment between Product deliverables and Go-to-Market strategies/Operating Plans.

Success looks like

- Consistent delivery of accurate, timely financial information and analysis that drives decision-making

- Proactive evolution of financial models / insights to meet the ever-changing needs of Xero

- Strong collaborator who builds relationships at all levels across the organization.

- Trusted advisor, providing recommendations that influence decisions made by leadership

- Active leadership within the Financial Planning team, shaping its direction and impact

- Team empowerment through effective management, ensuring high-quality output and individual growth

- Strategic foresight demonstrated through well-defined long-term plans and deep understanding of business drivers

What you’ll bring with you

Critical competencies

- Strong collaboration with key leadership. 

- Team player, able to work with various levels in the company, flexible, comfortable in a fast paced environment. 

- Ability to take data and create a story that resonates with audiences and drive action. 

- Able to prioritize work, meet deadlines with attention to detail and accuracy. 

- High energy level, self-starter, proactive and results oriented. 

- Operates with full openness and transparency & integrity.

Experience

- Proven extensive experience in finance, with a number of those years in a senior leadership role

- SaaS or Technology industry experience in a fast paced startup or public technology company

- Superior analytical and problem solving skills, with demonstrated intellectual and analytical rigor

- Excellent communication skills to make recommendations to senior leaders. 

- Demonstrated leadership and team management experience.

Why Xero? 

Diversity of people brings diversity of thought, and we like that. Our human-first culture of respect, fairness, and inclusion is what helps Xeros thrive and work and beyond. Offering very generous paid leave to use however you’d like (plus statutory holidays!), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, employee resource groups, wellbeing programming and allowances, medical, dental, vision, and disability insurance, fertility and family forming financial support, 401k contribution matching, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices with snacks and break areas, flexible working, career development and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.

Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single competency or experience. If you are excited about this role, but your past experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be just the right person for this role and Xero. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at time of application and throughout the interview process.