Director of Finance

Schema App is a fast-growing, profitable SaaS company headquartered in Guelph, Ontario, with a team across Canada. We’re a smart, collaborative group driven by a shared mission: to become a global leader in enterprise marketing technology and help organizations future-proof  for the age of AI.
We work with some of the world’s most recognized enterprises, including SAP, Wells Fargo, and Henry Ford Health, to give them control over how their brand is understood and represented by AI across search and digital experiences.

At our core, we believe that in the age of AI, a brand is only as strong as the data behind it and the connections within it. As search evolves into AI-driven and agent-led experiences, that foundation becomes critical. That’s why we’re building the infrastructure enterprises need to control how they show up in AI today and compete in the agentic web tomorrow: driving growth, protecting their brand, and leading in the next generation of digital experiences.

Visit Schema App at  www.schemaapp.com or on LinkedIn.

We are seeking a strategic and forward-looking finance leader to build and lead our financial function, providing clarity, discipline, and insight that enables high-quality decision-making across the business. This role will play a critical part in driving sustainable growth, profitability, and capital efficiency, and will be a key member of our leadership team.

This is a hybrid role, requiring regular in-office presence at our Guelph headquarters.

Functional Accountabilities

• Financial Planning, Forecasting & Performance Management: 
  

Own and continuously refine a forward-looking financial view of the business to guide decision-making and ensure alignment with company goals.

• • Maintain a rolling 36-month forecast aligned to company objectives

• • Lead the annual budgeting process, ensuring alignment on targets, resource allocation, and investment priorities
  • Build and manage driver-based financial models (hiring, pricing, investments)
  • Monitor performance vs. plan, clearly explain variances, and update forecasts accordingly
  • Identify risks and opportunities early, ensuring no surprises within a 90-day window
  • Ensure financial plans are actively used to drive accountability across the business
• Strategic Financial Insight & Decision Support: 
  

Provide actionable insights that improve business outcomes and support leadership decisions.

• • Analyze performance and identify drivers of growth, margin, and efficiency

• • Recommend actions to improve profitability and capital efficiency
  • Partner with leadership on hiring, pricing, product investment, and expansion decisions
  • Clearly articulate trade-offs and expected ROI
  • Act as a strategic thought partner to the CEO and leadership team
• SaaS Metrics, Unit Economics & Financial Narrative: 
  

Own the financial story of the business and ensure leadership has clear visibility into performance drivers.

• • Own and report on key SaaS metrics (ARR, churn, CAC, LTV, payback, gross margin)

• • Provide visibility into software vs. services performance and margins
  • Translate financial data into clear, actionable insights
  • Build leadership dashboards and monthly reporting
  • Prepare the company for future investor or diligence processes
• Financial Integrity & Close Oversight: 

Ensure financial data is accurate, timely, and reliable.

• • Oversee the monthly close process (target: 6 business days)
  • Ensure financial statements are complete and accurate
  • Maintain strong financial controls and accounting policies
  • Manage risk, compliance, and external financial relationships
  • Support audit readiness as needed

• Finance Operating Rhythm & Leadership Partnership: 

Embed financial discipline into how the company operates.

• • Lead monthly, quarterly, and annual financial planning cadences
  • Reinforce ROI-based decision-making across the organization
  • Partner cross-functionally to align financial priorities with company goals
  • Ensure reporting and insights are delivered ahead of leadership discussions
• Team Leadership & Coaching: 

Build and lead a high-performing finance team

• • Build, lead, and sustain an A-player marketing team that consistently delivers company goals.
  • Hire, develop, and coach team members to A-player performance standards, using clearly defined role scorecards with outcomes, competencies, and success metrics.
  • Conduct quarterly talent reviews for all direct reports. Actively upgrade talent by coaching B-players with clear expectations and time-bound improvement plans, and exiting C-players in a timely manner.
  • Define, maintain, and regularly update A-player scorecards that clearly outline outcomes, competencies, and success metrics for each role. 
  • Model and reinforce Schema App’s values, holding team members accountable for both results and behaviors.
• Leadership Team Member:

Contribute meaningfully as a leadership team member. 

• • Act as an effective and accountable member of the leadership team, contributing to company-wide strategy, prioritization, and execution.
  • Adopt and operate within the Metronomics framework, coming prepared to leadership meetings with clear data, perspectives, and recommendations.
  • Engage in constructive debate to surface the best decisions, then fully own and execute agreed-upon priorities, regardless of prior disagreement.
  • Partner cross-functionally to achieve company goals and the 3HAG, holding peers accountable for both results and adherence to Schema App’s values.

Key Competencies

• Strategic Thinking & Decision Support

Connects financial data to business strategy and brings clear, opinionated recommendations that drive decisions. Challenges assumptions, frames trade-offs, and proactively pushes leadership to improve growth, profitability, and efficiency.

• Executive Communication & Influence

Communicates complex financial concepts clearly and concisely to leadership and external stakeholders. Frames insights in terms of business impact and trade-offs, and effectively influences decisions without direct authority. Strong at financial storytelling. 

• Financial Modeling & Planning Discipline

Builds and maintains robust, driver-based financial models that support budgeting, forecasting, and scenario planning. Ensures plans are grounded in reality (actuals) by continuously refining assumptions and enforcing accountability to financial targets.

• SaaS Business Acumen

Deep understanding of SaaS metrics (ARR, churn, CAC, LTV, payback, gross margin) and how they connect to growth, retention, and profitability. Understands how GTM, product, and customer success decisions impact long-term value and margin structure.

• Stakeholder & Resource Management

Effectively manages and influences both internal and external stakeholders, including vendors and financial partners. Demonstrates strong judgment in negotiating trade-offs and ensuring effective allocation of company resources. External stakeholders can include: insurance, accounting, investors, legal firms, and others.

• Financial Discipline, Risk & Stewardship

Applies strong judgment in balancing growth, profitability, and risk. Ensures responsible stewardship of company resources by maintaining financial discipline, supporting sound decision-making, and upholding appropriate controls as the company scales.

• Continuous Improvement & Efficiency

Actively seeks to understand how the business operates across GTM, product, and delivery. Uses curiosity to uncover inefficiencies, validate assumptions, and identify opportunities to improve performance. Continuously improves financial processes, systems, and workflows to support scale. Leverages automation, tools, and AI to increase efficiency, reduce manual work, and improve accuracy and speed.

• Commercial Judgment & Deal Oversight (Bonus)

Provides financial oversight on non-standard and high-impact commercial agreements, ensuring deal terms appropriately balance growth, profitability, and risk. Identifies and challenges deal structures that negatively impact margin, cash flow, or long-term obligations, and drives improvements in pricing, discounting, payment terms, and overall unit economics.  Establishes guardrails and frameworks to ensure consistent evaluation of deal profitability and risk across the business.

Metrics

• Pre-Tax Profit: Target 10–15% as the business scales
• Labor Efficiency Ratio (LER): ≥ 2.0
• Forecast Accuracy: No surprises within a 90-day window
• SaaS Metrics Improvement: CAC payback, gross margin, retention, expansion
• Close Timeliness & Quality: Monthly close completed within 5 business days
  
• >80% A-players within your function, as assessed through quarterly talent reviews and discussed with leadership team.
  

Core Values Alignment

• Growth Mindset – Continuously experiments, learns, and adapts in enterprise and AI-driven marketing.
• Resourceful – Delivers high-impact results creatively with strong ROI.
• One Team – Collaborates seamlessly across Sales, CS, Product, and partners
• We are Humble – Elevates team and partner voices, seeks feedback, and adapts with curiosity.

AI-based tools may be used to support screening; all resumes are reviewed by a member of our team.

Life @ Schema App

• Culture focused on your growth: Weekly 1:1 with conversations around Professional Development
• Great benefits for health & wellness, and your coverage starts as soon as you do
• RRSP matching!
• Flex days to re-energize on top of vacation days and you don’t work on your birthday
• The Culture Club keeps our virtual team connected through fun and innovative events
• Diverse smart team! The more inclusive we are, the better our work will be
• Schema App’s purpose is to build meaningful connections, with each other, our customers, and the data so that we are all understood. We are a team of smart people helping each other solve hard problems.
  

If you require accommodation during the application process, please let us know. We are committed to an inclusive work environment and welcome applicants of all backgrounds and perspectives.