Director, Finance AI & Automation

SharkNinja•Needham, MA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

SharkNinja is a global product design and technology company. AI at SharkNinja focuses on building an AI-native culture where employees are expected to experiment boldly, adopt new tools, and continuously raise what’s possible to create meaningful impact for consumers. The Finance organization is a strategic partner enabling innovation, accelerating growth, and driving outstanding business performance. As the Director, Finance AI & Automation, you will own the design, build, and deployment of AI capabilities within the global Finance organization. This role involves personally building AI agents and automations that will transform how Finance plans, closes, controls, and makes decisions across FP&A, Accounting, Internal Audit and SOX, Tax, and Treasury. Success will be measured in gross margin dollars, headcount productivity, and enterprise value, not just hours saved. You will also be responsible for scaling the capability safely, managing the agent register, control tiering, and establishing standards for auditable automated processes in a SOX environment. This role requires a "Rarely Satisfied" mindset, excellent "Communicating for Impact" skills, and an "Outrageously Extraordinary" approach to innovation.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related quantitative field required.
8 to 10 years of progressive experience, with a genuine blend of Finance and Technology.
Demonstrated experience owning financial processes end to end in one or more of FP&A, Accounting and close, Internal Audit or SOX, Tax, or Treasury, in a public company environment.
Demonstrated, hands on expertise building and deploying AI agents and automations into production, with reference to specific systems you have built and the measured outcome they produced.
Experience working inside a public company control environment, and the judgement to know when an automated process needs a human control and when it does not.
Experience leading technical delivery, including managing or mentoring engineers, analysts, or a mixed team.
Track record of quantifying and defending the financial impact of a technology investment to executive leadership.
Experience working in a fast paced, highly collaborative, matrixed global organization.
AI agent design, build, and deployment, including agentic workflow orchestration and tool use
Large language model application development, prompt and context engineering, evaluation, and guardrail design
Claude Code or an equivalent agentic coding environment, at a level sufficient to build and ship, not only to consume
Python and SQL
Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)
Financial close, consolidation, and reporting
Internal control design and SOX
Data modelling, master data, and governed financial dimensions
Systems integration and API design
AI governance, model risk, and control tiering
Business case development and value quantification
Executive financial presentations

Nice To Haves

MBA, CPA, CMA, or an advanced degree in a technical discipline preferred.
Claude, Claude Code, and the Anthropic API
Oracle ERP and Oracle EPM or FCCS
Palantir Foundry
Snowflake
Power BI, Tableau, or Domo
Python, SQL, Git
Microsoft Excel (Advanced), Power Query, Microsoft PowerPoint

Responsibilities

Help drive the Finance AI and automation roadmap end to end, from opportunity identification through production deployment, adoption, and measured business outcome.
Personally build agents and automations. This role stays hands on at the Director level and is expected to ship, not only to direct.
Set and deliver the value case for the capability in gross margin dollars, headcount productivity, or enterprise value. Never in hours saved.
Deploy the team across FP&A, Accounting, Internal Audit and SOX, Tax, and Treasury, prioritizing by financial impact rather than by which function asks loudest.
Partner with the SVP, FP&A, the Chief Accounting Officer, the VP, Internal Audit, and Tax and Treasury leadership to identify and sequence the highest value use cases in each area.
Build and own the Finance agent register and control tiering framework, so that every agent in the estate has a named owner, a defined control classification, and evidence sufficient for internal and external audit.
Establish the engineering standards for Finance built automation: version control, testing, change management, access control, data lineage, and human in the loop design where control requires it.
Ensure every funded agent consumes governed financial dimensions rather than creating another private definition of a number.
Partner with Digital Technology, Data, and external partners on platform selection, architecture, and integration into Oracle ERP, EPM, and the enterprise data estate.
Assess build versus buy honestly, and be willing to recommend against a purchase when the differentiated answer is a build.
Lead and develop a small team of highly technical finance professionals, and transfer capability into the wider organization.