Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Why work for us?
POSITION SPECIFICATION
The Position: Chief Financial officer
Reports to: Chief Executive Officer
Location: San Francisco or Los Angeles, California
An Exciting Leadership Opportunity
Brilliant Corners, a high-growth, high-impact organization, is seeking a visionary, strategic Chief Financial Officer to serve on the executive leadership team of the organization, to be an innovative and leading edge thought partner to members of this team, and to lead and manage an expanding Finance and Accounting team in this statewide organization experiencing rapid growth and significant positive impact in communities in northern and southern California with critical housing and housing services.
This is an exciting opportunity to lead, build, manage and mentor a high performing team while serving as the key financial function executive with passionate and mission-focused colleagues. Brilliant Corners has an outstanding statewide reputation, excellent relationships with funders, complex, exciting, and impactful work, and a 17-year track record of increasing capacity and capital attraction resulting in dramatic prior growth and future growth potential – a nonprofit “unicorn” per its CEO, William Pickel.
THE ORGANIZATION
Vision
A future in which no one faces homelessness or unnecessary institutional involvement for lack of affordable housing and community-based supports.
Mission
To create affordable, supportive housing for vulnerable and underserved people, including but not limited to people with intellectual and physical disabilities and those transitioning or diverted from homelessness or institutions.
Overview
Founded in 2004, Brilliant Corners provides innovative housing and housing-related services to those transitioning from or at risk of homelessness or institutionalization.
Brilliant Corners develops, owns, and manages multi-family supportive housing and licensed residential care homes. Additionally, the organization is very well known for designing and scaling innovative scattered-site supportive housing programs including landlord engagement, tenancy supports, rent subsidy administration, and clinical case management through partnerships with the developmental services, homeless services, veteran services, criminal justice, and health care sectors.
Brilliant Corners is the organization-of-choice for significant housing and housing services programs with public sector partners and funders where broad scale and rapid rollout is required or desired.
The Board and staff of Brilliant Corners are passionate about systems change and social justice.
Organizational Overview
Brilliant Corner is governed by a 10-member Board of Directors. The Executive Team is currently comprised of the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Program Officer, and the CFO. A Chief Human Resource Officer recruitment process is nearing conclusion. The Leadership Team is comprised of approximately 30 staff members in Associate Director level roles and above who meet on a regular basis to discuss policy needs and operational improvements.
The organization has approximately 400 staff, operating throughout northern and southern California, with an annual budget approaching $400M, and $300M in current assets, including owned properties across California.
The Finance and Accounting team currently numbers 28 staff members.
Organizational Culture
Brilliant Corners is deeply and actively focused on racial justice and racial equity as part of its work, internally and externally. The organization has a firm commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and embarked on a formal racial equity process two years ago.
The organizational culture is one of respect, acceptance, inclusiveness and welcome. Staff describe the pleasure of working with colleagues who are passionate about the work and about making a difference; they approach their roles and responsibilities with collegiality and commitment. They also describe the cultural vibe as friendly, warm, diverse, vibrant, and very much loving working with their colleagues. Brilliant Corners fosters a culture that is attentive employees’ self care.
For additional information on Brilliant Corners, its business lines, financials, and people, please see www.brilliantcorners.org.
Position Summary
The Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”) leads the Finance, Accounting, Treasury, and control activities of Brilliant Corners. The CFO reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”), reports out to the Board Treasurer and Finance Committee, and is an integral part of the organization’s Leadership and Executive Teams. The CFO develops and implements policies and procedures for the financial administration of the organization.
The CFO manages a team that currently includes two Directors of Finance, two Associate Directors of Finance, two Accounting Managers, and one Financial Systems Manager (who has a strong “dotted line” reporting relationship to the Director of Data and Technology). The team in southern California is approximately 50% larger than the team in northern California.
The CFO position requires strong, well developed technical finance and accounting skills, adeptness and savvy with complicated finance and accounting structures and processes, and the ability to successfully and effectively lead the financial function while “connecting the dots” of a multi-business line, fast growing, complex organization.
Responsibilities
Organizational Leadership
- Provide strategic input and leadership on decision-making affecting the organization and share responsibility for overall policy development and management as a member of the Leadership and Executive Teams. This includes all aspects of the organization, including strategy, business operations, human resources, programs, culture and racial equity. Examples include future-looking efforts on behalf of Brilliant Corners, i.e., what strategies, approaches, technologies should the organization’s leadership be considering that it is not already? Provide clear-eyed analysis of existing business lines and suggestions on how to improve them.
- Serve as advisor to the CEO, COO and Board of Directors (“Board”) on financial matters.
- Work closely with the CEO and the Board to build and strengthen the financial health and operations of the organization.
- Provide support to the CEO and the Board to facilitate the development of long-term goals and objectives of Brilliant Corners.
- Maintain and communicate through words and actions commitment to the mission, vision and values of Brilliant Corners, as well as commitment to develop and sustain effective working relationships with internal and external constituencies, and commitment to work collegially in a culturally diverse environment.
Finance and Accounting
- Serve as strategic thought partner to the CEO, COO, CPO, and Board on organizational matters from finance and accounting, business planning, budgeting and forecasting perspectives.
- With the Directors of Finance, ensure the finance and accounting needs of Brilliant Corners are clearly articulated so that financial expertise and support structure is provided in a timely manner and serves the needs of the organization efficiently and effectively.
- Provide general oversight of all accounting responsibilities, including accounts payable and receivable, grants and contributions, budgets, accounting systems, financial and internal controls, and financial and tax reporting.
- Prepare and manage the organization’s annual budget, which includes the related entities.
- Oversee multiple audits on the organization and related entities.
- Prepare and present financial and budget reports to the Board on the overall financial condition of Brilliant Corners, and progress of and proposed revisions to the annual budget. Coordinate all activities for the Finance and Audit Committee meetings, including setting the agendas, preplanning meetings with Finance and Audit Committee chairs, external auditors, and drafting reports and memos. Plan and prepare the meeting agendas, reports and materials for the quarterly board meetings.
- With the other officers and key staff (CEO, COO, CHRO and CPO, data team), ensure compliance with all laws regarding corporate governance.
- Optimize use of finance and accounting business tools such as Sage Intacct, Adaptive Insights, Paycom, MineralTree, and AssetEdge, as well as inter-operability with other software systems such as Salesforce, Paycom, Yardi and Apricot Case Management. Plan for future software improvements.
- Develop risk management policies and procedures in collaboration with other key internal and external stakeholders.
- Critically analyze and assess business opportunities and their financial viability.
External Relations
- Represent Brilliant Corners to funding partners and financing providers, such as county and local governments, private foundations, and commercial banks. With diplomatic yet clear communication, and a customer-service orientation, work very closely with key funders around topics large and small: advances, invoicing and coding and billing issues.
- Ensure positive and collegial relationship with the external auditors, leading and managing the audit compliance process with internal staff.
Management and Mentoring
- Provide management of and mentoring to all Finance and Accounting staff, ensuring management skills training at lower levels as warranted.
- Ensure less experienced, less technically proficient staff receive training and skills development to excel in their positions.
- Promote organization-wide financial literacy and fiscal management mindset for all staff across all functional areas.
- Ensure constructive feedback loops to staff encouraging their continued professional development and continuous learning.
A WINNING MINDSET
Your gears are always turning, trying to figure out how to make things better. You see opportunities for improvement wherever you look and know how to get buy-in from others to make it real. You’re a systems thinker who knows how to manage scale without defaulting to counterproductive bureaucracy. You look beyond today’s problems and see the big picture. You’re all about the end-user experience being awesome.
Sure you’re a “numbers person,” but you also understand that it’s people that make the magic happen. Accountants have feelings too. You’re a strong leader of teams and know that it’s critical for your people to have a sense of purpose, feel valued and enjoy their work and our culture.
You’ve got healthy levels of humility and humor and seem to be suffering from ego-deficiency syndrome. You recognize that no one is an expert in everything and you enjoy constantly taking in new information. To call you a “continuous learner” is an understatement. And you’re a big believer in the idea that humor and fun make everything better.
Ambiguity? Change? Growth? New challenges? Not only do these not scare you, they are squarely in your wheelhouse. You thrive in an entrepreneurial environment. You’re resourceful and at ease with ambiguity and rapid change. You possess a positive, can-do attitude, and are adept at identifying creative solutions that turn challenges into opportunities. You can handle many important responsibilities at once and you’re rigorous about prioritization.
