Director - FP&A
Hyderabad, India
About Blaize
Blaize is building a hybrid AI platform engineered to support edge-to-cloud intelligence at scale—delivering efficient, scalable AI designed for complex, multimodal workloads across industries. We serve critical infrastructure sectors including smart city, defense, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and automotive.
Our full-stack programmable processor architecture and low-code/no-code software platform enable real-time AI processing for high-performance computing at the network’s edge and in the data center. Blaize solutions deliver actionable insights with low power consumption, high efficiency, minimal size, and low cost.
Headquartered in El Dorado Hills (CA), Blaize has over 200 employees worldwide, with teams in San Jose (CA) and Cary (NC), and subsidiaries in Hyderabad (India), Leeds and Kings Langley (UK), and Abu Dhabi (UAE).
To learn more, visit www.blaize.com or follow us on LinkedIn at @blaizeinc.
Description
We are seeking a strategic and hands-on Director of FP&A to lead the translation of our total company plan and translate it into clear, accountable plans for each function/department. This role drives integrated planning under the senior finance leadership based in the US, ensuring every key function understands targets, trade-offs, resources, and timing. In parallel, you lead Strategic Sourcing & Procurement to deliver cost efficiencies across people, programs and external partners—and you keep our procure-to-pay process SOX/audit-ready.
What you’ll do
Integrated Financial Planning
From company plan
- functional plans: Partner with Product, Engineering, R&D, Sales, and G&A leaders to convert top-down targets into department plans with owners, timelines, and resources. Close gaps and land plans leaders can commit to.
- Interlock cadence: Run simple, regular checkpoints so all functions stay on one plan and resolve trade-offs early (scope, timing, resourcing).
- Long-Range Plan (LRP): Maintain a 3–5-year view of revenue, Gross Margin, and EBITDA, with a few “what-if” cases and clear assumptions (capacity, capital, mix).
- Finance & business transformation: Simplify planning templates and handoffs; improve NetSuite/Concur reporting and a concise exec KPI pack.
- Margin execution (GM & EBITDA): Publish a milestone-based plan (cost, mix, pricing guardrails, operating efficiency, logistics) and track it to completion with owners; clear roadblocks quickly.
- Workforce planning & optimization:
- Map people’s time to projects to create a simple capacity view by team.
- Identify skill gaps and redeploy talent to 3–4 priority initiatives.
- Build a practical hiring/backfill plan; run quarterly resource reviews tied to outcomes.
- Partnering style: Collaborative, hands-on support—guide and hand-hold leaders to achieve their functional financial goals.
Financial Business Partnering (R&D, Product, Engineering, GTM)
- R&D & Engineering: Align program budgets to roadmaps and milestones; track burn vs. outcomes; flag trade-offs early; help sequence work to protect GM/EBITDA.
- Product: Build simple business cases for new offerings and features; set pricing/discount guardrails; track product-level unit economics.
- GTM (Sales/Marketing/CS): Connect pipeline to revenue targets; improve conversion and deal quality; support large/exception deals with clear finance checks.
- Execution drumbeat: Monthly reviews with each function—progress to plan, next actions, and risks; one slide per team.
- Decision tools: Driver trees, “what-if” scenarios, and a short list of KPIs each team owns; keep visuals clean and repeatable.
- Working capital touchpoints: Partner with Ops/Eng to reduce rush / risk buys and aged inventory; align payment timing to cash goals (AP/terms).
- People & skills: With each leader, ensure the right people are on the right projects; escalate gaps and propose fixes (re-scope, hire, vendor help).
What success looks like
- Function/department plans in place, aligned to the company plan, with gaps resolved in interlocks—not at quarter-end.
- Gross Margin and EBITDA improve on a visible, milestone-based plan owned by each function.
- Human capital deployed toward 3–4 strategic initiatives with clear capacity views and fewer bottlenecks.
- Faster, better decisions in R&D, Product, Engineering, and GTM using simple KPIs and finance checks.
- Audit-ready procurement with faster cycle times, fewer exceptions, and clean SOX results.
Qualifications
- 20+ years across finance and operations leadership roles in technology; strongly preferred.
- Led annual planning, interlocks, and long-range planning; delivered tangible GM/EBITDA improvements.
- Proven track record in driving cross-functional projects and negotiations with realized savings and stronger terms.
- Strong modeling and executive storytelling; you make complex trade-offs simple.
- Bachelor’s degree required; MBA/CA/CPA/CMA preferred.
How you work
- Collaborative coach: You guide teams to the target and stay with them through execution.
- Simple beats complex: Clear memos, clean dashboards, practical processes.
- High ownership: You move cross-functional work forward without formal authority.
- Controls-minded: You keep processes scalable and audit-ready.
How to apply
Send your resume and a brief note describing:
- a GM/EBITDA improvement plan you led and what changed,
- a cross-functional execution win with R&D/Product/Engineering/GTM, and
- one procure-to-pay control you designed that passed audit and stuck.
Blaize is an equal opportunity employer. We pride ourselves on having a diverse workforce and we do not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, creed, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law. We respect the gender, gender identity, and gender expression of our applicants and employees, and we honour requests for preferred pronouns. It is our policy to comply with all applicable national, state, and local laws pertaining to non-discrimination and equal opportunity.
