Senior Director, Financial Planning & Analysis in London

At Optimizely, we're on a mission to help people unlock their digital potential. We do that by reinventing how marketing and product teams work to create and optimize digital experiences across all channels. With Optimizely One, our industry-first operating system for marketers, we offer teams flexibility and choice to build their stack their way with our fully SaaS, fully decoupled, and highly composable solution. We are proud to help more than 10,000 businesses, including H&M, PayPal, Zoom, and Toyota, enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue and grow their brands. Our innovation and excellence have earned us numerous recognitions as a leader by industry analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, and IDC, reinforcing our role as a trailblazer in MarTech.

At our core, we believe work is about more than just numbers -- it's about the people. Our culture is dynamic and constantly evolving, shaped by every employee, their actions and their stories. With over 1500 Optimizers spread across 12 global locations, our diverse team embodies the "One Optimizely" spirit, emphasizing collaboration and continuous improvement, while fostering a culture where every voice is heard and valued. Join us and become part of a company that's empowering people to unlock their digital potential!

The Senior Director of FP&A is a critical finance leadership role at Optimizely, responsible for shaping the company's financial narrative and driving the planning infrastructure that connects strategy to execution. This role owns the full-cycle financial planning process — budgeting, forecasting, and reporting — and partners directly with the executive team to inform decision-making at the highest level.

You’ll lead a team of four Finance Business Partners (each embedded across key business units) and three Senior Financial Analysts, building a high-performing, data-led function. You’ll also play a key role in Optimizely's exit readiness program and the AI transformation of the FP&A function.

• Financial planning and forecasting
  • Own the annual budgeting and forecasting process across all functions, ensuring alignment with company strategy and executive direction.
  • Manage and continuously optimize the financial forecasting structure within Adaptive, including model architecture, driver logic, and planning workflows.
  • Enforce the monthly close calendar, partnering with Accounting to ensure timely and accurate reporting.
  • Lead monthly financial updates to the CFO, delivering clear, concise performance narratives with actionable insights.
  • Own consolidated financial statement reporting across the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement.
  • Ensure all reporting is accurate, audit-ready, and aligned to management accounts standards.
  • Prepare quarterly financial reviews for the Board of Directors, translating complex financial data into clear executive-level storytelling.
• Business partnering and cross-functional leadership
  • Lead four Finance Business Partners, each aligned to a distinct business unit, providing coaching, workload management, and strategic direction.
  • Collaborate closely with the executive team on financial planning decisions, investment trade-offs, and performance course-corrections.
  • Manage the company's investment request process — evaluating, prioritizing, and tracking all significant capital and expense proposals.
  • Support all operational efficiency initiatives, providing financial modeling and scenario analysis to guide decisions.
• Exit readiness and strategic support
  • Support the company's exit readiness program, ensuring financial processes, controls, and documentation meet the standards required for a future transaction.
  • Provide ad hoc financial analysis and modeling to support strategic initiatives, M&A diligence, and board-level requests.
• AI transformation and innovation
  • Lead the AI transformation of the FP&A function, identifying, piloting, and scaling AI-powered tools and workflows across planning, reporting, and analysis.
  • Drive the team toward data-led decision support — building repeatable, scalable analytical frameworks that reduce reliance on manual processes.
  • Act as an internal champion for modern finance tooling, including Adaptive, and continuously raise the bar on how the team uses technology.
• Team development and leadership
  • Mentor and develop the Finance Business Partners, building their strategic capabilities, executive presence, and analytical skill sets.
  • Foster a high-performance culture grounded in accountability, intellectual curiosity, and continuous improvement.
  • Act as a connector across the finance team, ensuring the Sr. Financial Analysts supporting each FBP are well-directed and growing in their roles.

• Experience
  • 10+ years in FP&A or corporate finance, with at least 3 years in a senior leadership role managing finance teams.
  • Proven track record owning full P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow reporting in a complex, multi-entity environment.
  • Experience presenting financial results and outlook to board-level or C-suite audiences.
  • Background supporting or leading a company through an exit, IPO, or M&A process is strongly preferred.
  • Hands-on experience with Adaptive (Workday AdaptivePlanning) —including model design and planning structure— is a strong advantage.
• Skills and capabilities
  • Exceptional financial modeling and analytical skills, with the ability to synthesize large datasets into concise, decision-ready insights.
  • Strong executive communication skills — you can tell a financial story clearly in a board meeting or a Slack message.
  • Deep experience with budgeting processes, business partnering, and cross-functional stakeholder management.
  • Demonstrated ability to lead AI adoption and drive automation within a finance team.
  • High proficiency with Excel and financial planning systems; working knowledge of Power BI or similar data visualization tools is a plus.
  • Ability to manage competing priorities across a broad remit without losing focus on the details that matter.

In this role, strong performance looks like:

• Monthly close calendar is consistently met with zero surprises in the CFO pack.
• Budget and forecast variance is well-understood, well-documented, and communicated proactively.
• Board quarterly reviews are delivered on time, accurate, and praised for clarity.
• Finance Business Partners are growing, engaged, and widely valued by their business unit stakeholders.
• AI and automation initiatives meaningfully reduce manual FP&A effort and improve insight quality.
• The investment request process is structured, transparent, and influences resource allocation decisions.
• Exit readiness workstreams are on track and the finance function is audit-ready at any point.

Bachelor's in Finance / Accounting. MBA ideal but not required.

Optimizely is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Optimizely is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.