SVP, Finance Innovation

Paramount•Los Angeles, CA

2d•$278,900 - $411,500

About The Position

The Senior Vice President, Finance Innovation is a newly created, high-visibility leadership role responsible for reimagining how the Finance organization operates through the application of artificial intelligence and agentic automation. This role will identify, champion, and implement AI-driven opportunities across the Finance function, with a particular focus on building agentic workflows and AI systems capable of autonomously executing multi-step financial processes with human oversight, across Accounting, Forecasting & FP&A, Treasury, Tax, and operational finance areas unique to a media and entertainment enterprise, including Production Finance and Participations & Residuals. This leader will serve as the bridge between Finance, Technology, and Data/AI teams, translating complex financial processes into scalable, intelligent automation while maintaining rigorous controls, auditability, and compliance standards appropriate for a large public company. The successful candidate will combine deep finance domain expertise with a strong point of view on emerging AI capabilities, and the organizational influence to drive adoption across a broad and often decentralized finance ecosystem. As Finance advances its Fusion systems integration, this leader will be a key voice in shaping how that effort intersects with Finance's broader innovation and automation agenda.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, or related field required; MBA, CPA, or equivalent advanced credential preferred.
15+ years of progressive finance, accounting, or FP&A experience, ideally within a large, complex, public media, entertainment, or content organization.
Demonstrated track record leading finance transformation, process automation, or technology-enabled change initiatives at scale.
Hands-on familiarity with AI/ML concepts, generative AI, and agentic or RPA-based automation, and how they apply to financial processes; direct experience implementing such tools strongly preferred.
Experience with production finance and/or participations and residuals processes is a plus given the specialized nature of these areas in media and entertainment.
Prior exposure to SOX controls, internal audit requirements, and the governance considerations of deploying automation in a public-company financial environment.

Nice To Haves

Strong finance and accounting fundamentals combined with genuine curiosity about, and fluency in, emerging AI capabilities.
Executive presence and the ability to influence senior stakeholders across Finance, Technology, and business units without direct authority over all of them.
Proven ability to translate technical AI/automation concepts into business terms finance professionals can act on, and vice versa.
Strong program and change management skills, with comfort operating in ambiguity and building new organizational muscle from scratch.
Sound judgment regarding risk, controls, and the appropriate pace and boundaries of automation in regulated financial processes.

Responsibilities

Define and lead the enterprise Finance Innovation strategy and multi-year roadmap for AI and agentic workflow adoption across all Finance sub-functions.
Partner with the CFO organization and Finance leadership to identify, prioritize, and business-case AI opportunities based on value creation, risk profile, and feasibility.
Build and maintain a prioritized pipeline of use cases spanning close and consolidation, reconciliations, forecasting and variance analysis, cash and liquidity management, tax provision and compliance, and production finance/participations & residuals calculations and reporting.
Stay ahead of the external AI and finance-technology landscape (agentic frameworks, LLM-based finance copilots, RPA-to-agentic evolution) and translate relevant developments into actionable internal opportunities.
Partner with Product, Technology, Data & Analytics, and external delivery partners on agentic workflow and AI-tool initiatives as the Finance domain voice, defining use cases, finance requirements, and success criteria, and providing continuous feedback through design, build, and deployment.
Own finance-side accountability across the delivery lifecycle: opportunity identification and prioritization, requirements definition, controls and change management within Finance, driving adoption, and validating realized value while Product and Technology own solution design, build, and rollout execution.
Specify the finance control requirements agentic systems must meet: human-in-the-loop oversight, exception handling, and escalation, and validate that the frameworks Product and Technology implement keep those systems within Finance's risk, controls, and SOX/regulatory boundaries.
Convene Internal Audit, SOX, and Compliance to define the control and documentation standards AI-driven finance processes must satisfy, and carry those requirements into the Product and Technology build so solutions meet public-company standards.
Partner closely with the EVP of Integration on systems integration work related to Fusion, ensuring Finance requirements, controls, and adoption considerations are represented as Fusion capabilities are integrated into Finance systems and processes.
Identify opportunities for agentic automation in journal entries, reconciliations, close checklists, and financial reporting.
Champion AI-augmented forecasting, scenario modeling, and variance analysis to improve speed and accuracy of business planning.
Explore agentic support for cash positioning, liquidity forecasting, bank reconciliations, and risk monitoring.
Identify AI applications in tax provision, compliance documentation, and regulatory research and monitoring.
Drive automation of production cost tracking, budget-to-actual analysis, and studio/content cost reporting specific to media production.
Champion agentic solutions for the complex, high-volume calculations, contract interpretation, and reporting inherent to participations and residuals processing.
Serve as a visible champion and educator for AI adoption, building Finance-wide fluency and comfort with agentic tools through training, communication, and hands-on enablement.
Develop governance structures, including an AI use-case intake process and a Finance Innovation council or working group with representation across Finance sub-functions.
Partner with HR and Finance leadership to evolve talent, role design, and ways of working as agentic workflows shift the nature of finance work.
Manage change resistance thoughtfully, ensuring adoption is durable and supported by the broader finance organization rather than imposed top-down.
Regularly report progress, value delivered, and roadmap updates to executive leadership, including the CFO and relevant Audit/Risk committees as appropriate.
Build strong relationships with Technology, Data/AI, Legal, business-unit finance leaders, and the EVP of Integration to ensure alignment and shared ownership of innovation initiatives, including Fusion-related systems integration work.
Represent the company's Finance Innovation agenda in relevant internal forums and, where appropriate, external industry settings.