Head of Finance

Why this role is written up before it exists

A Robotaxi network is a capital business before it is a service business. Vehicles, chargers, hub leases, and the partners and investors who fund them all show up on a balance sheet before the first rider taps for a ride. Today the founder keeps the numbers, after more than twenty years in financial services. A network of hubs cannot run that way. We have written this role up now so that the person who would build the finance function can find us early, and because the people we are asking for capital ask who keeps the books before they ask about the vehicles.

This page describes a role we expect to create. It is not an open position and not an offer of employment.

Is this one role or five?

One role at the first hub, and five later. FP&A, accounting, quote-to-cash, procurement, and tax are five functions, and at a company with one hub and one metro they are one job, held by one person who has worked inside at least two of them and can build the rest. An outside CPA firm handles tax filings and the year-end. A bookkeeper or a fractional controller may carry the transaction volume if it warrants. This role owns all of it: the calendar, the data, the procedures, and the outside firms.

The section "How this role would split" says what has to be true before each function becomes its own role. We would rather write that down now than post one salary for five jobs.

What this role would be

The head of finance for a company that intends to own vehicles, lease and build hubs, invoice partners, and report to investors. You would own the numbers the way the hub owns its launch-ready standard: defined before the work starts, measured every time, analyzed to the root cause when they miss, and controlled so what improved stays improved. You would choose the systems, write the procedures, run the close, and be the person an investor, an advisor, a landlord, or a shift lead calls when the question is about money.

What you would do

FP&A.

• Build and maintain the operating model: a P&L per hub, the cost and revenue of one vehicle (rides per vehicle-day, hours out of service, energy cost per mile, cleaning and service cost per ride), and a capital plan per metro.
• Close the month against the plan and explain every variance to a cause we can change, in the same weekly improvement review the hub floor uses.
• Run the scenarios around the one variable we do not control: when fleet vehicles become available to independent operators, at what price, and on what terms.
• Produce investor reporting in which the numbers in the update are the numbers on the floor, with the same freshness and the same definitions.

Accounting.

• Own the monthly close on a calendar, with the same procedure every month and a close checklist that gates the next step.
• Own fixed assets: vehicles, chargers, and hub improvements, with a written depreciation policy, and lease accounting for hub sites.
• Set revenue recognition for ride revenue, partner and event contracts, and any revenue share with a network operator, and reconcile what the ride platform reports to what lands in the bank.
• Run cash management and the controls a small team can actually keep: two-person rules on payments, reconciled bank and card accounts, a documented approval matrix.
• Select and run the accounting system and keep the audit trail so that a future audit or an investor's diligence takes weeks, not months.

Quote-to-cash.

• Own pricing and contracting for partners: venue and property agreements, event pickup-point packages, and hub and operations services to the network operators we intend to grow with.
• Run quote, contract, invoice, and collection as one procedure with terms written once and reused, and track collections as a number.
• Keep the contract file current so that event and partner operations never staff a pickup point on terms finance has not seen.

Procurement.

• Vehicles: purchase or lease terms, financing, warranties, and delivery scheduling that lines up with the technicians' launch-ready standard, so a vehicle is paid for, insured, and inspected in the right order.
• Chargers, parts, and consumables: the hub floor runs "Right part, right place, right time" with a parts lead; this role owns the supplier terms, contracts, and spend controls behind it.
• Hub sites: lease negotiation alongside hub site development, utility agreements, and insurance procurement with the advisors who know that market.
• Vendor onboarding, purchase approvals, and a three-way match sized for a small company rather than borrowed from a large one.

Tax.

• Sales and use tax on rides and services in North Carolina and in each metro; property tax on vehicles and equipment; highway-use tax and electric-vehicle registration fees; payroll tax once there is payroll.
• Entity, state, and federal filings, prepared with the outside CPA firm; this role owns the calendar and the data so nothing is filed late or twice.
• Credits and incentives for electric fleets and charging infrastructure, tracked as they exist at the time and never assumed in a plan until they are law.

Who you would be

• You have hands-on experience working within core finance functions such as FP&A, accounting, quote-to-cash, procurement, or tax: at least two of them deeply, and enough of the rest to build them from a blank page.
• You have built a finance function from zero at least once: chose the system, wrote the procedures, ran the first close, hired the first person.
• You have a CPA, a controller background, or the equivalent, and you are comfortable in asset-heavy businesses where the balance sheet is vehicles, equipment, and leases: fleet, logistics, equipment rental, real estate, utilities.
• You treat the close the way a hub treats a shift: same procedure, same calendar, measured, and you would rather fix the cause of a variance than explain it twice.
• You are plain with everyone: you can explain the cost of one ride to a shift lead and lease accounting to an advisor, in words each can use.
• You are comfortable working for a founder who spent twenty years in financial services and will read every number you produce.

How this role would split

Each of these would be written up on this site as its own role before it is posted.

• FP&A analyst. When there are two or more hubs, or the model is being updated weekly rather than monthly.
• Controller. When monthly transaction volume justifies a full-time close, or before the first audit, whichever comes first.
• Partner billing (quote-to-cash). When partner and event contracts exceed what one person can invoice by hand; the number would be set with the posting.
• Procurement lead. When vehicle and parts spend has a schedule of its own: the first vehicle order, or a second metro.
• Tax. Stays with the outside firm until the company operates in more than one state; then a tax manager.

How the work would be measured

Days to close the month; every variance explained to root cause, every month; days sales outstanding on partner invoices; cash forecast accuracy against actuals; a clean year-end from the outside firm; zero missed filings. The targets belong on the posting, not on this page, because none of these numbers exist yet.

What the posting would add that this page cannot

• A pay range. We intend to list one on every open role.
• The office, the metro, the start date, and the reporting line (the founder).
• Background-check requirements consistent with a role that moves money, stated in the posting.
• Benefits, and the certifications and continuing education we would fund for the role.

Not open yet

There is no hub, no fleet, and no start date. Joining the talent network under Finance and administration is how to be on the list when there is, and it creates no obligation on either side. Join the talent network under Finance and administration.