Senior Director, Finance and Business Performance

About the role

Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) - the leading destination for innovative management thinking. We reach lifelong learners to improve the practice of management in a changing world. This mission inspires each of us to unlock the leader in everyone - including you!

Harvard Business Impact empowers educators to prepare students who can navigate tomorrow's complex challenges.

The Opportunity

The Senior Director, Finance and Business Performance will drive continued growth for the Higher Education unit by leading long-range planning, budgeting,, strategic decision-support processes and revenue operations. As a member of the leadership team, this role will partner with Product, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Experience to support key business decisions that advance the unit's strategic and financial goals.

This role will have dual reporting to unit leadership and the CFO and will own the creation and execution of efficient systems that enhance nimble, data-driven decision-making capabilities while building a high-performing, outcome-driven team.

What You'll Do

• Partner with the Unit Head and CFO to ensure the short- and long-term financial growth and profitability of the Higher Education business.
• Lead financial modeling, strategic planning, and capital allocation analyses and decisions, aligning growth aspirations with resource allocation. Build and evaluate business cases and investment plans, including ROI, NPV, and predictive modeling analyses.
• Drive process improvements across Higher Education, working with cross-functional partners to determine the best usage of AI and data analytics to facilitate automation where applicable.
• Lead the determination of top KPIs to understand the drivers and leading indicators of the Higher Education business and ensure accountability across the leadership team. Lead and evolve Business Intelligence and Analytics capabilities, managing a team of analysts and external partners to allow leadership to focus on the most important business drivers and decisions.
• Develop dashboards, financial models, and decision-support tools to improve performance, profitability, and resource optimization.
• Lead Revenue Operations, including pipeline tracking, target setting, compensation modeling, pricing strategy, and territory performance management. Modernize Salesforce processes through automation, process simplification and governance to improve efficiency, discipline, and scalability.
• Lead Financial Planning operations, including annual budgets, quarterly forecasts, monthly reporting, variance analyses, and Board updates.
• Leverage marketing, web, and customer analytics to improve forecasting accuracy and business insights.
• Guide cross-functional enablement with Marketing, Sales, and Product teams to analyze market trends, competitive dynamics, and customer opportunities.
• Conduct investment reviews, track milestones, and measure business outcomes.
• Partner with Enterprise Revenue/AR Operations to ensure alignment on revenue recognition, credit, bad debt, and related policies.
• Influence priorities across Enterprise IT and Data & AI teams to align technology investments with business needs.

What You'll Bring

• Proven track record of 12+ years of financial planning, business intelligence, and/or analytics-related experience in guiding an organization's financial strategy with at least 3-5 years in a leadership role
• High level of curiosity, EQ, adaptability and desire to learn
• Demonstrated proficiency with financial metrics, including the ability to direct analytical work and set KPIs.
• Extensive experience leading, developing, and retaining high-performing teams.
• Expert-level Excel skills; working knowledge of Tableau, Salesforce and web analytics tools.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Finance/Econ or Business; MBA preferred

You'll Stand Out If You Have

• Prior experience working internationally or supporting a global business.
• Prior experience working closely with a sales team.
• Excellent strategic, communication and financial storytelling skills

What we offer

As a mission-driven global company, Harvard Business Publishing is committed to fostering a culture of inclusion, trust, and engagement where everyone is welcome, valued, respected, and feels they belong. In addition to a competitive compensation and benefits package, we offer meaningful programs focused on career development and employee wellness, such as education reimbursement and early-release Summer Fridays!

$160,000-$190,000

• Above is the annualized pay range for this position.
• In addition, this position includes the opportunity to earn our annual Performance Based Variable Pay Program.
• Actual salary will be set based upon a range of factors, including external benchmark market data, individual knowledge, skills, experience, location and internal equity.