Lead Financial Analyst, Strategic Business Partner - Product & Technology at Wikimedia

Summary

Join the Foundation in our ambitious project to empower people to create and share the sum of all human knowledge. We are seeking a Lead Financial Analyst to act as the strategic business partner for our Product & Technology department, which is one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing areas of the organization, boasting a combined budget exceeding $100M.

As the most senior analyst on the Financial Business Partner team, this role is responsible for driving significant improvements in financial planning, analytics, and our business partnership methodologies. Importantly, this position is fundamentally a business partnering role first, and a Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) role second.

You will collaborate closely with product and engineering leaders, assisting them in weighing investment trade-offs before decisions are finalized, and translating product roadmaps into concrete financial plans. You will work directly alongside the Chief of Product and Technology (CPTO), the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and the wider executive team. This represents an opportunity to make a substantial impact within a mission-driven organization that hosts one of the world's most visited websites.

Why This Role Matters

• Be the trusted finance advisor to Product & Technology leadership, actively contributing to how we allocate investments exceeding $100M across people, infrastructure, and partners.
• Contribute to infrastructure that facilitates over 20 billion monthly views.
• Lead impactful projects with high executive visibility, engaging with our CPTO and CFO.
• Shape the future of our business partner function by pioneering projects, establishing standards, and mentoring other analysts.
• Join a collaborative, globally distributed team committed to sharing knowledge.

What You Will Do

Finance Partnering for Product & Technology

• Serve as the lead finance partner to department leaders and budget owners, delivering analysis that informs prioritization and investment trade-offs.
• Participate in planning and roadmap discussions early on, providing the financial perspective to highlight risks and trade-offs before commitments are made.
• Provide the financial voice in business strategy related to our technical infrastructure and product development objectives.
• Translate roadmaps from teams such as SRE, AI/ML, and Data Engineering into budgets, forecasts, and plans for headcount and contractors.
• Lead the annual budgeting cycle, quarterly reforecasting, and multi-year planning for your assigned departments.
• Facilitate optimization of vendor spending across cloud services, hosting, software, and contractor support.
• Plan for capital and technical accounting requirements.
• Lead data center and infrastructure CAPEX planning, including considerations for capacity, hardware refreshes, and depreciation impacts.
• Collaborate with Accounting on software capitalization, specifically regarding project classification and the capitalization of labor and contractor costs.
• Model total cost of ownership and evaluate build-versus-buy scenarios, clearly articulating the financial implications to non-finance executives.

Insight and Reporting Delivery

• Manage month-end close processes, forecasting, and variance analysis, providing clear commentary on drivers, risks, and opportunities.
• Present resource plans and financial performance reviews to senior leadership, including the CPTO and CFO.
• Develop and maintain dashboards that effectively link spending to specific technical and product outcomes.

Leadership, Mentorship, and Function Strengthening

• Coach and mentor FP&A analysts on modeling techniques, analytical approaches, and stakeholder partnership, including reviewing their work and helping them develop executive ready communications.
• Assist in defining the standard for excellent financial business partnership and disseminate best practices across the team.
• Lead projects aimed at enhancing the function, from initial scoping through final rollout, including streamlining multi-year financial modeling, departmental reporting, and business insight generation.
• Support the management of our financial planning and reporting system through documentation, process improvements, and new module implementations.

What You Will Bring

Required Qualifications

• A Bachelor's degree and 7 or more years of experience in FP&A, financial business partnering, or corporate finance, with proven experience supporting a technology, engineering, or product organization.
• An MBA or CPA is preferred.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with technical and product teams, coupled with a strong aptitude for learning how those teams operate.
• Experience operating at a strategic level concerning organizational and business wide goals.
• Strong capabilities in financial modeling and analysis, along with excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting to executive audiences.
• A history of building trust with senior stakeholders and influencing decisions without direct authority.
• Experience supporting multiple divisions or business units concurrently, along with experience mentoring or coaching other analysts and leading process improvement initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Tech specific planning experience, such as data center or infrastructure CAPEX, software capitalization (ASC 350-40), headcount planning, and contractor or vendor spend management.
• Experience utilizing Workday Adaptive Planning.
• Proficiency in finance business intelligence and reporting tools.
• Prior experience within a nonprofit, open source, or mission driven organization.
• An understanding of the free culture, free software, or online rights movements.

Qualities We Value

• A passion for problem solving and understanding the relationship between granular decisions and overarching systems.
• A deep drive to understand business drivers and determine the best ways to deploy resources for maximum impact.
• A strong belief in our mission and a genuine enjoyment of collaborating with diverse stakeholders.
• The ability to work effectively with distributed teams, both asynchronously and synchronously.
• A proactive mindset, comfort with ambiguity, and adaptability in a fast moving environment.
• A dedication to finding ways to simplify and standardize processes while guiding others through change.
• A thoughtful mentorship style that focuses on elevating the capabilities of those around you.

What Success Looks Like

• Product & Technology leaders actively engage with you as a thought partner, rather than just a scorekeeper.
• Investment proposals consistently arrive with clear and well supported financial justifications.
• Budgets and forecasts accurately reflect the actual roadmap, and variance commentary offers clear explanations for deviations.
• FP&A analysts on your team demonstrate growth in skill and confidence through your guidance.
• The overall business partner function achieves stronger standards, tools, and processes compared to prior to your arrival.

Travel Expectations

Frequency: 2 to 3 trips per year (international and domestic).

Purpose: This travel will be for the annual department offsite, strategy alignment sessions with Product & Tech leadership, and participation in global community conferences.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization responsible for operating Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our overarching vision is a world where every human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe everyone possesses the potential to contribute to our shared knowledge, and that this knowledge should be freely accessible to all.

We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences that support reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners that enable Wikimedia, and advocate for policies that allow Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive.

As a charitable, not-for-profit organization, we rely on donations. We receive support from millions of individuals globally, with an average donation of about $15, as well as through institutional grants and gifts. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization with its offices in San Francisco, California, USA. As an equal opportunity employer, the Wikimedia Foundation is committed to fostering a diverse workforce and continuously striving to maintain an inclusive and equitable workplace. We strongly encourage candidates from a wide range of backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate against any individual based on race, traits historically associated with race, religion, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy or related medical conditions, parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, veteran status, disability status, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristics.

The Wikimedia Foundation operates as a remote first organization, with staff members and contractors based in over 40 countries. Salaries at the Wikimedia Foundation are set to be competitive, equitable, and consistent with our core values and culture. The anticipated annual pay range for applicants based within the United States is US$110,000 to US$181,000, though this is subject to adjustment based on individualized factors, including the cost of living in the specific location. For applicants located outside the US, the pay range will be adjusted according to the country of hire. We strictly do not request or consider applicants' salary history. The final compensation package for a successful applicant will be determined based on their skills, experience, and location.

Please note our current hiring locations:

• US States: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming (US Territory or Federal District).
• Countries: Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Non-US employees are hired via a local third party Employer of Record (EOR) and must possess current work authorization in their location (citizens or permanent residents only). We periodically update this list to ensure alignment with our hiring needs. All applicants are welcome to contact their recruiter to learn more about the specific pay range for their location during the interview process.

If you require assistance or an accommodation to complete any part of the application process due to a disability, please contact us at [email protected] or +1 (415) 839-6885.