Sr Director Finance

First Student is North America’s largest student transportation provider — nearly $5 billion in revenue, 45,000 buses, and 60,000+ employees across the US and Canada, backed by EQT’s infrastructure investment thesis. Recognized by TIME as one of the 100 Most Influential Companies of 2026 and by Fast Company as one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2025 (#6 in Transportation), we move the most precious cargo in the world safely to school every day.

The Senior Finance Director, FP&A is the VP of Finance’s primary partner in leading the enterprise FP&A function — owning day-to-day execution across planning, forecasting, reporting, and analysis; consolidating financial performance across all seven regions; and producing the financial intelligence the VP, CFO, and CEO use to run the business. First Student operates with a flat leadership culture, and this role carries regular direct exposure to the CFO and CEO through financial reporting, planning discussions, and strategic reviews.

Beyond execution, this leader drives two transformation priorities: evolving enterprise forecasting into a system‑driven, AI‑enabled process, and shifting the finance team’s output from financial variance reporting to KPI‑based business driver analysis that connects financial outcomes to the operational decisions behind them.

Reports to the VP, Head of Finance, who holds enterprise accountability for FP&A, Pricing, Regional Finance, Cap Ex, and Leveraged Cash Flow. Leads a team of six across three functions:

• Director, FP&A — primary analytical partner, with one Analyst and one indirect Analyst.
• Finance Manager, SG&A — HQ SG&A planning and monitoring, with one Analyst.
• Finance Manager, Systems & Planning — FP&A systems, tools, and process infrastructure, with one Analyst.

Works alongside seven Senior Regional Finance Directors and the Senior Finance Director, Pricing in a peer‑level consolidation partnership.

• Lead the enterprise annual budget and rolling forecast, coordinating submissions across all seven regions and HQ into a coherent plan aligned with corporate and EQT objectives.
• Lead enterprise Leveraged Cash Flow (LCF) planning and forecasting in alignment with EQT’s infrastructure investment framework.
• Drive forecast accuracy by challenging assumptions and working with regional and HQ finance leaders to close gaps.

Transform First Student’s forecasting into a system‑driven, AI‑enabled process. The contract portfolio’s natural rhythm — ~two‑thirds stable, one‑third in active renewal — enables a two‑speed approach:

• System‑driven, light‑touch rolling forecast for the stable portfolio, leveraging automation and AI with minimal manual effort.
• Semi‑annual, human‑intensive cycles during renewal season, where finance, pricing, and regional teams collaborate on assumptions, risk, and opportunity.
• Shift the team’s primary output from forecast maintenance to insight generation — proactively surfacing risks, opportunities, and recommendations for leadership.

• Deliver routine P&L, Cap Ex, and LCF performance reports to the VP, CFO, and CEO, and prepare Board and EQT reporting packages with driver‑based executive narratives.
• Lead the transition from variance‑to‑plan reporting to a KPI‑driver framework — connecting financial outcomes to the operational metrics (retention, renewal rates, ridership, cost per bus) that caused them.
• Develop and maintain standardized reporting templates, dashboards, and KPI frameworks across all reporting cycles.

• Lead enterprise Cap Ex planning, budgeting, and monitoring — including EV fleet expansion — consolidating regional submissions and tracking actuals versus plan for executive and investor reporting.

• Consolidate regional P&L, Cap Ex, and LCF submissions into enterprise‑level views; serve as the primary HQ FP&A point of contact for planning assumptions and reporting standards.
• Oversee HQ SG&A planning and monitoring; partner with functional leaders on bottom‑up budgets and flag risks to…