Head of Finance & Operations - San Francisco Bay Area

About Flagright:

Flagright is an AI operating system for financial crime compliance used globally by Fortune 500 companies, large banks, fintechs, and fast growing startups. Flagright enables real-time risk detection, automated investigations, and intelligent decisioning, helping compliance teams operate at their full potential in the fight against financial crime.

We operate as a lean, high-performance team with high individual ownership and direct access to leadership.

Role overview:

The Head of Finance & Operations will take ownership of Flagright’s financial, HR, and legal operations globally, spanning our offices in the US, UK, India, and Singapore. This is a hands-on, operational role for a generalist with strong finance & legal expertise who thrives in high-growth environments and is excited to take on significant responsibilities while building and optimizing processes to support rapid scaling.

People who thrive at Flagright:

• Take ownership and operate with urgency

• Are resourceful and solution-oriented

• Learn quickly and adapt to changing priorities

• Have strong opinions and can defend them

• Want to work with no-BS people building something important

People who struggle here:

• Need extensive hand-holding

• View high expectations as “unreasonable”

• Actually prioritize work-life balance

• Can’t handle ambiguity

• Prefer consistent routine over fast-changing priorities

Key responsibilities:

Finance

• Prepare and manage investor updates, Board meetings, and monthly consolidated management accounts spanning 4 entities across US / UK / India / Singapore

• Lead financial planning and analysis (FP&A), including budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis

• Develop and maintain detailed financial models to support strategic decision-making and operational planning

• Oversee accounts payable and enforce accounts receivable processes to maintain smooth cash flow operations

• Collaborate with external accountants and tax experts to optimize accounting and tax strategies, ensuring compliance and efficiency

• Implement inter-company pricing measures, including managing transfer pricing documentation and compliance

• Oversee external auditors for a yearly audit across 4 global entities

• Contribute to pricing and deal desk operations

Operations

• Lead the HR function, setting clear standards for policies, execution, compliance, employee experience, and operational discipline

• Manage and mentor the HR team, ensuring strong ownership across onboarding, offboarding, employee documentation, payroll coordination, benefits, and HR systems

• Build scalable people processes across multiple jurisdictions, partnering with external counsel and advisors where needed

• Partner with leadership on performance management, compensation reviews, promotions, role changes, workforce planning, and organizational design

• Establish people dashboards, reporting cadences, and operating rhythms to give leadership visibility into headcount, hiring, retention, performance, and people risks

Legal Operations

• Partner with leadership and sales on commercial negotiations and MSAs, balancing speed, risk management, and business priorities

• Liaise with external lawyers to manage contracts, mitigate risks, and ensure global compliance

• Manage an internal legal team working across employment, commercial, corporate, insurance, regulatory, and cross-border matters

Who we are looking for:

• 10+ years of professional experience, with a solid background in Finance (must have) and HR and Legal operations (preferred) in a high-growth environment

• Must have prior experience in a SaaS start-up or scale-up environment

• Experience operating across multiple entities, jurisdictions, currencies, and time zones, with an understanding of cross-border finance and multi-entity accounting, as well as HR, legal, tax, and compliance considerations

• Strong working knowledge of SaaS business models, including ARR, retention, gross margin, CAC/payback, burn, runway, cash forecasting, and investor-facing operating metrics

• Comfortable being both strategic and hands-on: able to advise leadership while also diving into models, contracts, payroll issues, vendor workflows, and operational details when needed

• Proven people-management experience, ideally managing distributed or offshore teams, with high standards for ownership, responsiveness, and execution - note that the team reporting to this role is based in the Philippines

• Based in the Bay Area with right to work in the USA (visa sponsorship not available). This is a fully in-person role, based in our Santa Clara office.

What we offer:

• Leadership position with direct impact on how Flagright runs and grows globally

• High-bar environment focused on execution, learning, and continuous improvement

• Health insurance through Kaiser Permanente in California

• Equity from day 1 at a Y Combinator startup

• Housing subsidy if you live within 1 mile of our office

• Work alongside a highly competent, top-tier team, including professionals from Y Combinator, ex AWS, and Palantir

• Enjoy a low-bureaucracy environment, minimal meetings, and an asynchronous communications culture