Finance Operator, Business Partner

Mechanism Ventures

1d•Remote

About The Position

The Finance Operator, Business Partner acts as a financial thought partner for Mechanism’s portfolio CEOs, Heads of Growth, and executive leadership. This role is not a reporting function or back-office position, but rather is embedded across multiple high-growth companies and Mechanism Ventures, advising operators on critical decisions and owning the financial narrative. The role involves addressing unglamorous edge cases, requests without clear owners, and financial questions that arise due to the incumbent's context, with the expectation to build systems to eliminate such work. It requires generalist financial acumen, driver-based instincts, multi-company fluency, and the ability to operate independently at a high level within the finance function.

Requirements

You have 6-10 years of FP&A, startup finance, or multi-company work.
You have advised founders or operators directly.
Driver-based modelling is your default.
You are comfortable holding financial context across multiple companies simultaneously.
You learn fast, build systems rather than just doing the work.
You have worked across a portfolio, PE-backed roll-up, or multi-entity environment.
You have built financial reporting infrastructure from scratch, not just inherited it.
You have enough accounting literacy to QA a close without running it yourself.
You have experience with modern FP&A platforms.

Responsibilities

Advise operators on their most consequential financial decisions
Sit with CEOs on unit economics, cash flow, runway, and growth investment.
Ask questions they have not thought to ask.
Pressure-test assumptions before they become commitments.
Be the person they call when they need to think, not just when they need a number.
Own the financial narrative
Understand and communicate actuals against plan at a driver level.
Provide forward-looking commentary grounded in what the business is actually doing with intellectual honesty over optimism.
Provide deliverables that can be acted upon, not just read.
Validate the analytical layer
Work alongside the Finance Operator, Data to define what gets built and confirm it is financially correct before it reaches anyone.
Have the acumen to know when an output does not make sense and the credibility to say so.
Handle the full financial surface area
Encounter the full range of financial questions that arise across a growing portfolio, and be expected to navigate them with genuine competence, not just escalate them.
Read a P&L, understand unit economics, and know when a number is wrong because you understand how businesses work.
Hold financial context across multiple businesses simultaneously without confusing them.
Find it interesting that one company has a seasonality problem while another has a CAC problem, rather than wishing you could just focus on one thing.
Get better fast.
Build systems rather than just doing the work.
Leave functions better than when you found them.
Do not wait to be told what needs fixing.