Vice President of Finance and Strategy

Reports to: CEO

Stage: ~$6M ARR SaaS, Low burn, targeting ~100% YoY growth

Rocket Alumni Solutions builds SaaS + services for interactive recognition displays (donor walls, halls of fame, alumni and employee recognition) for schools, universities, athletics, and donor-driven organizations. We sell into education and related institutions via:

• Channel Partners (hardware / ecosystem partners)
• Customer Success, Marketing, Design, Data Entry, and Operations

This role is the financial and strategic counterpart to the CEO across all of those motions.

Be the CEO’s primary business partner. Own the plan, the metrics, and the economics across Sales, Partners, Customer Success, Marketing, Design, Data Entry, and Operations - while keeping a lean, GAAP-compliant finance foundation in place.

Rough split: ~70% growth & strategy / ~30% finance foundation.

• Define a small, clear KPI set for the whole company (ARR, GRR/NDR, CAC, payback, gross margin, installs/live screens, runway, etc).
• Run the operating cadence in conjunction with VP of Ops.
• Weekly: KPI review and key actions.
• Monthly: business review with each department
• Quarterly: planning and resource allocation.
• Design quota and territory models based on Rocket’s sales cycle (schools, districts, athletics, development offices).
• Build capacity plans: how many BDRs/AEs are needed to hit ARR targets.
• Set pricing and discount guardrails and deal-approval rules grounded in payback and margin.
• Define which partners matter most (hardware, design firms, fundraisers, scoreboards, consulting firms, etc) and why.
• Build partner economics (rev share, attach rate, services) and simple scorecards.
• Shift a meaningful % of new ARR to partners where unit economics are equal or better than direct.

• Model CS capacity versus onboarding volume and active screens/customers.
• Tie retention and expansion plays (new modules, additional locations, new use cases) to NDR targets.
• Help prioritize CS focus: which accounts, cohorts, or products move GRR/NDR most.

• Own the marketing budget from a return-on-spend perspective.
• Compare outbound, inbound, and paid channels on CAC, payback, and pipeline quality; shift spend accordingly.
• Make sure Sales has enough high-quality pipeline by segment (K-12, higher ed, athletics, donors) to hit targets.

• Design:
  Align design workloads to revenue and retention priorities; define simple SLAs.
• Data Entry:
  Track ROI and identify where automation is worth investing.
• Operations:
  Shorten time from "deal closed" to "screen live"; track cost-to-serve and fix margin leaks in deployment and support.

• Collaborate with the VP of Operations to identify, track, and surface key metrics that drive informed, data-based decisions.
• Prioritize projects (hires, campaigns, partner programs, product bets) based on payback and ROI, not intuition alone.
• Support fundraising, debt, and board/investor relations with clean SaaS metrics, cohesive narratives, and simple scenario trees.
• Ensure GAAP, ASC 606, and a clean close via a Controller (fractional or in-house): close ≤15 business days, integrated systems (QBO, billing, payroll, AP) feeding your models and dashboards.

• 8-12+ years in B2B SaaS across FP&A / strategy / biz-ops; have owned a company-level plan, not just a departmental budget.
• Clear track record of outlining and achieving growth roadmaps.
• Clear track record of moving numbers: improved CAC/payback, NDR, gross margin, or successful pricing/packaging changes.
• Strong modeling skills (Excel/Sheets; SQL/BI a plus) and comfortable simplifying complex data for non-finance leaders.
• Hands‑on with SaaS metrics (ARR, NDR, payback, cohorts) and comfortable tying them to day‑to‑day decisions in Sales, CS, Marketing, and Ops.
• Comfortable running GAAP and ASC 606 both alone and with a team.
• Bonus: experience with education, public sector, or donor-driven organizations; building partner ecosystems; fundraising or debt.