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Overview
The Head of Finance is often the Jack-of-all-trades in an organization as it manages most, if not all, of the back office functions. In this role, you must understand operational accounting, corporate finance, and various ops functions as well as know how to build a world-class team.
This 4-week course is designed to help current Heads of Finance to “level up” across the role’s many facets and help you gain confidence in becoming a strategic and operational partner to the C-Suite.
Peter Nesbitt is COO at Teampay and 3 time head of finance at VC-backed SaaS startups. At each company, he was instrumental in (re)building the tech stack, implementing new processes, and hiring and developing teams. Additionally, he has helped raise >$100m of equity and debt capital and led a successful sell-side process at one of the companies.
Peter co-founded the FinOps Pavilion and regularly writes for Forbes on finance and ops topics. He recently launched a podcast, where he interviews CFOs on awkward conversations. In his most recent role, as Head of Finance at Teampay, a leading spend management software provider, he has been deeply involved in the future of technology for the CFO’s office. Before startup life, he worked in private equity at Carlyle and investment banking at Deutsche Bank. He also served in the US Army Intelligence Corps.

Information
This 4-week course is meant to help you level up across the four major fundamental areas of leading finance including operational accounting, corporate finance, managing various ops functions, and building your team.
This course is designed for early to mid-career finance and accounting professionals who want to lead the finance department of an early-stage organization with at least 3 years of finance and/or accounting experience.
This course is also recommended for first or second-time Heads of Finance that are wanting a community of leaders in the same field that also lead the finance department at an early-stage organization.
Heads of Finances are expected to be multifaceted even without having prior accounting, investment banking, and operational experience. But understanding these different areas including sourcing and hiring top talent is critical to your success in effectively leading the finance department.
By the end of this course you will have the knowledge and skills to be able to:
- Better manage the month-end close process including paying vendors and employees as well as getting paid by customers in a timely manner
- Set up financial models and reporting including an operating cadence around financial planning and budgeting that allows you to better track the business and finances
- Partner with SalesOps and PeopleOps to build financial reporting and compliance
- Structure a finance team including assigning key roles and responsibilities as well as structure your hiring and interviewing process to identify top talent
Curriculum
All about Ops
In this course, you will learn:
- Standing up and maintaining an investor data-room
- Cleaning up your accounting books & performing an internal audit
- Maintaining Compliance (Taxes, ASC 606, SOC, etc.)
- Cross-functional alignment
Investor Relations
In this course, you will learn:
- How to build financial models and materials for various types of investors
- How to create board decks and investor materials
- How to develop relationships with investors and the board
Change Management
In this course, you will learn:
- Why and how organizational change may be initiated
- Framework example for managing organizational change
- What Finance leaders could expect when managing organizational change
- Examples of change initiatives involving Financial leadership
Audit Readiness
In this course, you will learn:
- Why it is important to get financial statements audited
- Where to start with preparation for the first audit
- What support you will need to get for a successful first audit
- What tools to use to get ready for your first audit