Director of Finance

Petrus Aviation, LLC ("Petrus") is a flexible and efficient provider of equity and capital solutions to the aviation industry, financing investments across aircraft and engine leasing, trading, part out, and freighter conversions. The firm partners with industry-leading operators and stakeholders to identify and execute investment opportunities throughout the aviation asset lifecycle. Petrus is focused on disciplined capital deployment, operational excellence, and value creation, providing investors with access to specialized aviation assets through a scalable and data-driven investment platform.

Petrus Aviation is seeking a dynamic and experienced Director of Finance to oversee the finance, valuation, cash flow monitoring, reporting, and controls environment for an aircraft leasing investment fund in Dallas, TX
. Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, this individual will serve as the operational finance lead between the deal team, operating partners, accounting providers, valuation analyst, management, and investors.

A primary responsibility of this position will be to establish and maintain a strong financial control environment across the platform, including oversight of cash flow monitoring, operating partner reporting, accounting and tax information, valuation inputs, and investor-facing reporting. This individual will be responsible for ensuring the accuracy, completeness, and integrity of the information used to support financial reporting, investment valuations, and management decision-making.

The role will also oversee the valuation process and preparation of the discounted cash flow models used to value the fund's aircraft investments. The ideal leader will also implement and maintain strong controls, procedures, governance practices, and documentation standards to support reliable valuations, informed decision-making, and investor confidence.

• Manage the Valuation Analyst and oversee the quarterly valuation process from data collection through model review, management review, and final valuation support.
• Establish clear deadlines, review expectations, documentation standards, and approval procedures.
• Evaluate current DCF models for structure, formula integrity, assumption consistency, scalability, auditability, version control, and ability to support fair value conclusions.
• Determine whether models should be refined, standardized, rebuilt, or supplemented with more robust templates, dashboards, input schedules, or controls.
• Independently review analyst-prepared models and challenge lease assumptions, maintenance assumptions, residual values, discount rates, timing of cash flows, debt assumptions, end-of-life assumptions, and other valuation drivers.
• Perform sensitivity analyses and explain valuation changes to management.
• Review whether existing models are well-structured, formula-driven, transparent, consistent, and capable of supporting reliable aircraft-level valuation marks.
• Prepare written model assessments identifying strengths, risks, gaps, and recommended improvements.
• Determine whether the models should remain as-is, be standardized, or be rebuilt into a more controlled framework with consistent input tabs, assumption libraries, output summaries, dashboards, and audit trails.
• Develop recommended model design and implementation roadmaps as needed.

• Tie lease terms, bank activity, partner reporting, maintenance activity, reserves, debt service, expenses, and residual assumptions back to support.
• Maintain input control checklists, partner data trackers, and exception logs.
• Review formulas, links, timing mechanics, discounting logic, scenario functionality, forecast periods, terminal values, and sensitivity outputs.
• Maintain independent review sign-offs and documented review notes.
• Establish version control, model change logs, review evidence, and approval requirements for changes to assumptions, formulas, and structure. Maintain a formal model governance protocol.
• Assess whether the framework can support additional aircraft, partners, leases, debt structures, reporting requirements, KPIs, and investor questions without excessive manual work or control risk.
• Develop scalable templates, standardized reporting packages, dashboard frameworks, and repeatable quarterly workflows.

• Develop standardized partner reporting packages, timelines,…