Senior Director, Finance and Business Performance

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, monitoring, strategic decision-support processes and sales 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 health of the Higher Education business.
• Lead long-range financial planning, including revenue modeling, profitability forecasting, and alignment of growth aspirations with resource investments.
• Recommend budget allocation, strategic investments, and annual financial targets and KPIs to drive business performance.
• Lead financial modeling, strategic planning, goal-setting, and performance management processes.
• Direct Financial Planning operations, including annual budgets, quarterly forecasts, monthly reporting, variance analysis, and Board updates.
• Lead and evolve Business Intelligence and Analytics capabilities, managing a team of analysts and external partners.
• Develop dashboards, financial models, and decision-support tools to improve performance, profitability, and resource optimization.
• Leverage marketing, web, and customer analytics to improve forecasting accuracy and business insights.
• Build and evaluate business cases and investment plans, including ROI, NPV, and predictive modeling analyses.
• Partner with Marketing, Sales, and Product teams to analyze market trends, competitive dynamics, and customer opportunities.
• Conduct investment reviews, track milestones, and measure business outcomes.
• Lead Sales Operations, including sales planning, target setting, compensation modeling, pricing strategy, and territory performance management.
• Partner with Enterprise Revenue Operations to ensure alignment on revenue recognition, credit, bad debt, and related policies.
• Drive Sales Operations transformation through automation, process simplification, governance, and operating model improvements.
• Modernize Salesforce processes and governance to improve efficiency, discipline, and scalability.
• Influence priorities across Enterprise IT and Data & AI teams to align technology investments with business needs.
• Guide cross-functional enablement efforts to maximize support for Sales, Marketing, Product, and other key stakeholders.

What You’ll Bring

• 10+ years of financial planning, operations, business intelligence, and/or analytics-related experience.
• 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.

You’ll Stand Out If You Have

• Prior experience working internationally or supporting a global business.
• Prior experience working closely with a sales team.

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!

HBP is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions, or any other characteristic protected by law.

$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.