Director of Finance & People Operations

About Green Ocean Property Management

Green Ocean Property Management is a growing property-management organization serving residential rental and condominium/HOA portfolios, supported by related service businesses. Our operating model depends on accurate financial information, disciplined execution, strong managers, and people systems that can scale with the company.

Position Summary

The Director of Finance & People Operations is the senior functional leader responsible for the company’s financial discipline and HR operating system. Reporting to the COO, this person leads through the Controller and HR Manager and ensures both teams produce timely, accurate, decision-ready work without depending on the COO for day-to-day management.

This is not primarily a bookkeeping role or an HR-generalist role. It is a manager-of-managers position for someone who can connect financial performance, workforce decisions, internal controls, and manager accountability. The right person will make the business more predictable: leadership will know where the company stands financially, managers will understand the numbers and people outcomes they own, and finance and HR processes will run reliably.

Core Outcomes

The Director will be accountable for the following outcomes:

1. Reliable financial close and reporting — Monthly financial statements are accurate, reconciled, completed on the approved close calendar, and translated into clear actions for leadership.
2. Forward-looking financial control — Leadership has a current cash forecast, budget, operating forecast, and early warning on material risks or variances.
3. Clear financial accountability — Each department manager understands and owns the revenue, cost, staffing, and operating metrics assigned to that function.
4. Strong internal controls — Corporate books, client/property books, payroll, billing, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and cash controls have clear ownership, documented review steps, and escalation rules.
5. A dependable people system — Recruiting, onboarding, performance management, retention, compensation administration, employee relations, and offboarding operate consistently and legally.
6. Independent, accountable teams — The Controller, HR Manager, and their teams have clear scorecards, decision rights, development plans, and the ability to deliver without the Director redoing their work.

Key Responsibilities

Finance Leadership

• Lead, coach, and hold the Controller accountable for month-end close, account reconciliations, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll accounting, financial reporting, and finance-team performance.
• Oversee finance managers and accounting teams supporting the company’s operating entities and property-management segments.
• Maintain clear boundaries between corporate financial reporting and client/property accounting, including disciplined use of QuickBooks Online for company books and Buildium for client/property books.
• Own the annual budgeting and forecasting process, including department-owner budgets, operating assumptions, cash planning, scenario analysis, and monthly variance reviews.
• Produce a concise monthly management package covering revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, labor, cash, receivables, payables, budget variances, and material risks.
• Partner with operating leaders to improve profitability, pricing discipline, billing completeness, collections, labor efficiency, and cost control.
• Establish and enforce internal controls, approval limits, reconciliation standards, segregation of duties, and supporting documentation.
• Ensure leadership can distinguish source-system facts, estimates, forecasts, and proposed decisions.
• Coordinate tax, insurance, banking, audit, and outside-accounting relationships as assigned.
• Improve finance systems, dashboards, data quality, and automation while retaining appropriate human review over financial decisions and postings.

HR and People Operations Leadership

• Lead, coach, and hold the HR Manager accountable for the performance of the HR team and the quality of company-wide people processes.
• Translate the company plan into a workforce plan covering required roles, hiring priorities, capacity, compensation cost, and succession risk.
• Ensure recruiting uses clear role scorecards, structured interviews, hiring-manager calibration, documented decisions, and measurable pipeline reporting.
• Oversee onboarding, offboarding, employee records, payroll coordination, benefits administration, leave administration, and required compliance processes.
• Maintain a practical performance-management system with clear role expectations, regular one-on-ones, documented feedback, performance improvement plans, and timely reviews.
• Track and improve time-to-fill, offer acceptance, 90-day retention, voluntary turnover, performance-review completion, and required training completion.
• Guide managers on employee relations, documentation, coaching, and escalation; engage employment counsel or a qualified HR partner when legal interpretation is required.
• Develop compensation ranges, promotion criteria, and career paths that are internally consistent and tied to demonstrated capability—not title or tenure alone.
• Build an HR team that can independently operate recruiting, retention, administration, and manager-support workflows.

Executive and Cross-Functional Leadership

• Serve as the COO’s principal leader for finance and HR operations.
• Convert financial and people data into a short, prioritized executive do-list with an owner, deadline, metric, and expected business effect.
• Participate in leadership planning, operating reviews, annual planning, and major staffing or investment decisions.
• Identify risks early and bring a recommendation—not only a problem—to the COO and CEO.
• Set weekly operating cadences and scorecards for both functions, and ensure agreed actions are completed and verified.
• Protect confidential employee, payroll, client, and financial information and maintain appropriate access controls.

Decision Authority and Boundaries

The Director is expected to independently improve routine finance and HR processes, enforce approved controls and deadlines, manage the two functions, and make day-to-day operating decisions within approved policies and budgets.

The Director prepares evidence-based recommendations for executive approval on major hires or terminations, executive compensation, material policy changes, unbudgeted commitments, financing, acquisitions, legal settlements, and other decisions reserved for the COO or CEO.

This role owns operational finance and people leadership. It is not automatically a CFO seat: capital strategy, investor relations, fundraising, and mergers and acquisitions are included only when expressly assigned.

Proposed Scorecard

Final targets should be confirmed during the first 30 days after reviewing the current baseline.

Finance

• Month-end close completed on the approved calendar.
• All material balance-sheet accounts reconciled, with no unexplained material exceptions.
• Weekly 13-week cash forecast maintained and reviewed against actual results.
• Monthly financial package delivered on time with actionable variance explanations.
• Every department completes its scheduled budget-versus-actual review.
• Accounts receivable, accounts payable, unbilled work, and collection exceptions remain within approved targets.
• Payroll, tax, banking, and required financial filings are completed accurately and on time.

People Operations

• Approved roles have current scorecards and active hiring plans.
• Time-to-fill, offer acceptance, 90-day retention, and voluntary turnover are reported and improved against agreed targets.
• Onboarding, performance reviews, compliance training, and offboarding documentation are completed on time.
• Payroll and benefit changes are accurate and submitted by deadline.
• The HR Manager and Controller consistently deliver their scorecards without the Director redoing their work.

Required Qualifications

• Significant progressive experience in accounting or finance, including responsibility for close, financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, cash management, and internal controls.
• Experience leading managers and building teams that produce accurate work independently.
• Working knowledge of HR operations, including recruiting, performance management, payroll/benefits coordination, employee relations, compensation administration, and employment compliance.
• Experience in a multi-entity, service, property-management, real-estate, or similarly operationally complex business.
• Strong ability to turn financial and people data into clear decisions for non-finance leaders.
• Demonstrated judgment with confidential employee and financial information.
• Strong written and verbal communication, follow-through, and comfort holding peers and managers accountable.
• Advanced proficiency with spreadsheets and practical experience with accounting, property-management, payroll, HRIS, and reporting systems.
• Ability to lead a distributed or remote team across functions and time zones.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, Human Resources, or a related field.
• CPA, CMA, MBA, SHRM-CP/SCP, or comparable professional qualification.
• Experience with QuickBooks Online, Buildium, BambooHR, Google Workspace, and workflow or reporting automation.
• Experience improving close speed, cash forecasting, billing completeness, collections, retention, or manager accountability with measurable results.

Benefits and Time Off

Benefits for this full-time role include:

• Health insurance: Employer-sponsored health coverage. Eligibility, plan terms, and the employer contribution are governed by the applicable benefit plan and offer letter.
• Paid time off (PTO): 15 paid days annually, subject to company policy.
• Paid sick time: 5 paid days annually, subject to company policy and applicable law.
• Paid Holidays

Leadership Profile

The strongest candidate will:

• lead through clear outcomes rather than constant task supervision;
• be rigorous without creating unnecessary bureaucracy;
• challenge assumptions respectfully and use source data before drawing conclusions;
• distinguish urgent work from high-value work;
• solve recurring problems through process, ownership, and systems;
• coach managers while still holding a firm performance standard; and
• communicate bad news early, plainly, and with a recommended next step.

Equal Opportunity

Green Ocean Property Management is committed to providing equal employment opportunities. Employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without unlawful discrimination.

Internal Hiring Note

Because this position directly leads both the Controller and HR Manager, the hiring process should test four distinct capabilities:

1. ownership of a finance function;
2. judgment in hiring and workforce planning;
3. successful management of managers and distributed teams; and
4. the ability to run company-wide accountability processes without confusing process ownership with direct management of every manager.

A strong accounting candidate without proven people leadership is not sufficient. A strong HR leader without command of close, cash, budgeting, controls, and management reporting is also not sufficient.

Originally posted on Himalayas