Finance Director

About Us

There’s a reason HUNTER is recognized as a PRWeek Best Place To Work and has been named PRovoke “Consumer Agency of the Year” not once, but twice: At HUNTER, we EARN IT — consumer attention, the trust and loyalty of clients, and the dedication of our staff, currently 350+ strong and counting

Overview

The Finance Director supports all aspects of the agency’s financial management process, providing support to the CFO on month end close, forecasting, audit compliance, agency initiatives and serves as a liaison with Stagwell Corporate finance teams.  This role requires a commercially astute, analytical and articulate leader who can mentor the team, provide financial guidance and strategy to the business and develop strong relationships with Stagwell Corporate finance teams.  The position requires advanced excel and financial modeling skills with the ability to automate processes and translate complex financial data into meaningful commentary to help support the agency’s leadership and drive profitability. 

The position will manage the agency Client Finance team and report to the CFO, with offices in New York, LA, Canada and London. The role requires professional maturity, discretion, ethical behavior, exceptional organizational and interpersonal skills, agency finance expertise, and familiarity with HUNTER’s business and technology platforms, including Maconomy and UKG.

Responsibilities

Financial Leadership & Business Partnership

• Provide financial guidance and strategic support to agency leadership and the CFO, translating complex financial data into meaningful commentary that supports decision-making and profitability.
• Manage and mentor the agency Client Finance team while serving as a key liaison with Stagwell Corporate finance and shared services teams.

Financial Planning & Analysis

• Support and prepare Stagwell required financial templates.
• Leveraging Maconomy and Power BI tools, create automated reporting and analysis of data and metrics to help provide key insights into business trends and performance against agency metrics such as client churn, trade working capital, staff cost ratio and resource allocations.
• Maintain and enhance forecasting tools such as the revenue forecast report, new business tracking and staff allocations.

Month-End Close & Reporting

• Lead month-end close process ensuring adequate review of revenue recognition, monthly accruals for both billable and non-billable accounts, and variance analysis against prior period and budget/forecasts reporting results into the CFO for review and validation.
• Prepare required month-end reporting including client revenue database, monthly dashboards and flash reports.
• Develop and maintain monthly leadership reports and presentations, providing commentary and analysis against agency metrics, including actual vs. forecast, utilization, over-service and trade working capital.
• Partner with agency Client Finance team and Stagwell shared services to ensure intercompany mismatches are cleared prior to month end.
• Partner with Stagwell shared services teams ensuring proper review of financials, follow-up on open items and accurate recording of journal entries.

Trade Working Capital & Cash Flow

• Develop monthly client trade working capital and cash position reports that help the agency identify and measure key risk areas working with the teams on improvement strategies
• Review and monitor related balance sheet accounts ensuring follow up on material WIP items
• Oversight of aged accounts receivable, proactively escalating and resolving issues with collections
• Oversight of accounts payable and purchase order process, ensuring accurate payment terms and vendor documentation, proactively identifying vendors with unfavorable payment terms and working with CFO to identify and negotiate wherever possible
• Maintain and measure monthly cash flow submissions against forecasts identifying areas of risk and improvement

Payroll

• Partner with HR to support bi-monthly payroll submissions, submitting/reviewing all payroll inputs into UKG for accuracy and completeness prior to submission
• Utilize UKG BI reporting to enhance monthly process by developing reports that cross reference payroll data ensuring accuracy and visibility, particularly with tax related deductions and pro-rated calculations

Audit

• Support and oversight of internal/external audit for both US, UK and Veritas.

Contract Review & Pricing

• Support CFO in review of rate structures, client offerings and pricing to determine and negotiate new and existing client contracts
• Ensure MSA terms are reviewed and accurately reflected in Maconomy

Ad Hoc Implementations

• Lead implementations of tools and technologies such as Stagwell led initiatives in AI automation, the roll out of Hubspot and Workfront and the Bank of America corporate card program.

Qualifications

• 10-15 years progressive finance experience
• Advanced Excel Skills
• Experience with complex enterprise financial systems including Maconomy/Deltek, Hyperion/One Stream
• Deep understanding of financial accounting, P&L, balance sheet management
• Strong financial analysis and planning skills
• Ability to effectively manage workloads, prioritize and manage multiple deadlines
• Mentor and manage staff, comfortable providing regular feedback and guidance
• Client service mindset with the ability to foster positive working relationships
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

Leadership and Agency Fit

This role requires professional maturity, discretion, ethical behavior, exceptional organizational, communication and interpersonal skills, agency finance understanding and tracking skills, and an understanding of HUNTER’s business and its technology platforms, including Maconomy and UKG.

Alignment with HUNTER’s mission, values and business objectives is paramount.

Compensation

In order to comply with equal pay and salary transparency laws in various locations, the Company believes the target range of base compensation for this role is $150K-$200K. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and location.At HUNTER, we work hard and play hard, and while we have all the benefits you’d expect —competitive health and dental insurance plans, a 401K company match and generous PTO — we also provide:

• a hybrid work model;
• a “work from anywhere in the US” policy (up to four weeks a year);
• a year-round staff training and development curriculum; and
• a staff-led Action Group dedicated to DEI excellence in the agency and industry (read our DEI statement here: https://hunterpr.com/dei/)

Perks? We have perks. When you work at HUNTER, you can expect Bring Your Parents (And Kids) to Work Days, regular volunteer Days of Service, mid-day Cupcakes and Cocktails mixers and epic Halloween and holiday parties.Founded in 1989, HUNTER has grown into one of the most respected mid-size marketing communications firms in the country, creating work that matters in strategic planning, earned media relations, social and digital media, talent and influencer engagement, experiential marketing, multicultural outreach and content creation and distribution. And we do it all for esteemed companies and brands across every sector you can imagine:

• Food + Beverage
• Wine + Spirits
• Health + Wellness
• Beauty + Personal Care + Fashion
• Home + Lifestyle + Travel
• Retail + E-commerce

See us in action here: https://hunterpr.com