Finance Business Partner – GTM in London

About us

Encord is the universal data layer for AI that helps 300+ AI teams train and run models on the right data. Our platform indexes, curates, annotates, and evaluates data across the full AI lifecycle, from development through production. Trusted by Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath, Zipline, and more. We're an ambitious team of 100+ working at the frontier of AI and have raised $60M in Series C funding from Wellington Management, CRV, Next47 and Y Combinator.

The role

We're looking for a commercially sharp Finance Business Partner to sit at the heart of our GTM organisation. As we scale, the decisions made by our Go-to-Market teams are increasingly complex — and this role exists to make sure they're supported by rigorous analysis, clear financial frameworks, and a trusted finance voice.

You’ll be the primary finance partner for our Growth and Sales orgs, owning the full planning and forecasting cycle for GTM spend, and building the analytical infrastructure that links investment to pipeline, revenue, and long‑run unit economics. This isn’t a reporting seat — it’s a blank canvas. There’s no inherited playbook here: you’ll be building the financial infrastructure for GTM from the ground up, which means the frameworks you create, the processes you design, and the standards you set will be entirely yours. We need someone who finds that energising, not daunting.

What you’ll do

• Own GTM financial planning end-to-end.
• Lead the annual budget process and monthly re‑forecast cycles for GTM, building bottom‑up models that connect spend to growth outcomes and hold up under scrutiny.
• Be the trusted partner to senior GTM leaders.
• Work directly with the heads of Growth and Sales and their direct reports — acting as a critical friend who helps them understand performance, make smarter trade‑offs, and navigate ambiguity with confidence.
• Build and maintain core unit economics frameworks.
• Develop and own LTV/CAC, payback period, channel ROI, and CPA models that become the shared language of the GTM org. Ensure these are kept current and are actually used in decision‑making.
• Drive investment allocation rigour.
• Challenge and pressure‑test GTM spend proposals, surface efficiency opportunities across channels and segments, and help leadership re‑deploy budget towards the highest‑return activities.
• Deliver actuals‑vs‑forecast analysis with narrative.
• Produce monthly variance analysis that goes beyond the numbers — explaining the ’so what’, identifying emerging trends, and translating findings into clear recommendations for functional leads and the exec team.
• Prepare executive materials.
• Own the finance narrative in GTM performance reviews, presenting complex financial and operational information in a concise, structured way that drives decisions rather than just informing them.
• Partner with Accounting to close the loop.
• Ensure accurate and timely cost recognition, work through accruals and reclassifications, and maintain a tight feedback loop between what we planned, what we spent, and what we got.
• Work smarter, not just harder.
• Actively use AI tools, automation, and modern tooling to do more with less — whether that’s accelerating analysis, reducing manual work, or building more dynamic models. We expect this role to be at the frontier of how finance teams operate, not lagging behind it.

Who we’re looking for

• Real strategic influence.
• You’ll sit in the room where GTM strategy is shaped — not summarised — with a direct line to the heads of Growth and Sales. Your analysis will move budgets and shift priorities.
• A blank canvas, not a bureaucracy.
• There’s no existing playbook to inherit or maintain — you’ll define what GTM finance looks like here from day one. That means real creative latitude: to build frameworks that actually fit our business, not ones borrowed from somewhere else.
• Breadth and depth.
• GTM are two of the most dynamic, data‑rich functions in the business. You’ll develop deep expertise in growth economics while maintaining the commercial breadth that comes from working across the full revenue engine.
• A seat at the table early.
• We’re at a stage where the foundations you build now will define how this company manages growth investment for years to come. The work is consequential.

Experience requirements

• A background in finance, FP&A, or a commercially‑focused GTM role — we care more about what you’ve demonstrated than how many years you’ve spent doing it.
• Proven business partnering experience: you’ve worked closely with senior commercial stakeholders, earned their trust, and influenced real decisions — not just delivered reports.
• Evidence of driving results: you can point to moments where your analysis or challenge changed how a team allocated budget, set targets, or approached a problem.
• Enough financial fluency to own a planning cycle — budget‑setting, re‑forecasting, variance analysis — and build models that hold up under scrutiny.
• Familiarity with GTM economics — channel ROI, CPA, LTV/CAC, payback periods — whether from a finance seat or from working inside a commercial team.
• Comfort operating without a playbook in a high‑growth environment where priorities shift and the data isn’t always clean.

If you’re the kind of finance professional who gets energy from being close to the commercial action — who wants to shape strategy, not just track it — we’d love to hear from you.

Why Encord

• Competitive salary, commission, and equity in a high‑growth startup
• Strong in‑person culture — most of the team works from our London office 4+ days/week
• 25 days annual leave + UK public holidays
• Annual learning & development budget
• Travel for customer visits, events, and conferences across the UK and Europe
• Company lunches twice a week
• Monthly socials & bi‑annual team offsites