Chief Financial Officer
Location: Remote, United States
Type: Full-Time, Exempt
Reports To: Chief Executive Officer
About BAM!
Brains & Motion Education (BAM!) is one of the fastest-growing providers of afterschool enrichment and summer camps. We spark joy and ignite potential in tens of thousands of students through high-energy STEM challenges, character-building sports, and imaginative arts projects.
Most of the children we serve attend schools in low-income communities. Their families cannot buy a seat in a robotics club, a travel soccer program, or art classes. Children in high-poverty districts deserve the same quality of coaching, the same materials, the same energy from the adult in the room, and the same high expectations as children whose parents pay for enrichment every month. We design and deliver our programs to that standard.
We also work in one of the most compelling corners of education right now. States and districts have made “expanded learning” a durable public priority, and California alone has built it into an ongoing multi-billion-dollar commitment to afterschool and summer programming for its youngest students. That combination is rare: a mission with genuine urgency, a growing market with real public funding behind it, and a direct line between how well we run the business and how many kids we can support.
About the Role
This role owns finance for BAM!, at a company whose revenue and staffing are highly seasonal: enrollment and cash collections concentrate around the school year and, especially, the summer camp season, while hiring, working-capital needs, and program costs ramp sharply each spring. You will build the financial infrastructure that lets BAM! grow with discipline through that seasonality: forecasting and planning, accounting and controls, cash management, and reliable reporting that leaders, the Board, and investors can trust.
California is where we run the majority of our afterschool programs, summer camps, and child care programs, and where we anchor the bulk of our banking and audit work. We also run afterschool programs and seasonal summer camps in other states, so the job includes multi-state tax, licensing-linked financial reporting, and revenue recognition across programs that open and close on different calendars. Our full-time corporate staff work fully remotely, and we hire them anywhere in the United States.
You will report directly to the CEO and work closely with the Board on strategy, planning, capital, and financial governance. You will also partner closely with our HR & Employment Compliance Manager, who reports to you with a dotted line to the CEO. Finance and HR share benefits strategy and renewals (including the 401(k)), people policies with financial impact such as travel and reimbursement, seasonal headcount and payroll planning, and payroll forecasting and approval. HR leads on people, policy, payroll tax, and employment compliance; you bring the analysis, the controls, and the corporate filings. Finance also manages company administration: state registrations, licensing, company insurance, and triage of corporate mail and notices. The right person brings rigorous financial controls and forecasting discipline to a mission-driven, fast-growing organization, without slowing down the people engaging directly with the students.
What You'll Own
Financial Strategy & Planning
- Annual budgeting, predictive rolling forecasts, and long-range planning across a multi-program, multi-state portfolio with sharply seasonal revenue.
- Board-ready financial reporting and KPI dashboards, including unit economics by program, customer/camp, and state.
- Pricing strategy and margin analysis for afterschool programs and summer camp programs, both school-paid and parent-paid, including building or supporting the pricing and quoting tools Sales uses so proposals stay in line with unit economics.
- Scenario planning and financial modeling to support entry into new states and programs.
- Partnership with Operations leadership on the scheduling and labor-management systems and processes that set labor allocation rules, controls, and reporting, giving Program Managers and Operations Directors real-time visibility into current and projected program revenue, staffing, costs, and variances. This is a foundational lever for margin improvement.
- A single, trusted source of financial and operational data: clear ownership, standards, and controls for how scheduling, timekeeping, and payroll data flow into the general ledger and reporting.
- Investor and lender reporting, capital planning, and diligence support.
Accounting, Controls & Compliance
- Monthly close, GAAP-compliant financial statements, and internal controls that scale with headcount and site count.
- External audits and a sustainable annual audit cycle, income and franchise tax filings, and entity and company tax registrations across every state where BAM! operates.
- Revenue recognition across tuition, camp fees, and school and district contracts with different billing cycles and terms, through a repeatable monthly process.
- Compliance with state and local financial reporting requirements tied to child care and camp licensing.
- Selection and implementation of scalable financial systems that support multi-state, multi-program growth.
- Payroll tax and employment compliance filings and annual ACA reporting across all states where BAM! operates or employees work, with the systems and calendars that keep BAM! current with state and federal authorities.
- Payroll review and approval, including variance reporting on seasonal labor cost.
- Oversight of accounts payable, expense, and reimbursement processes and controls, including approvals, vendor payments, and 1099 reporting, currently delivered with our outsourced accounting partner.
- Consolidated financial reporting, intercompany accounting, and entity-level compliance across BAM!'s affiliated corporate structure.
Treasury & Cash Management
- Cash flow forecasting and working-capital management through BAM!'s seasonal cycle, including spring pre-season spend ahead of summer revenue.
- Banking relationships; credit facility acquisition, management, and reporting; and liquidity planning.
- Billing, receivables, and collections performance, including the data flow from program and Salesforce records and Paycom timecard hours to invoices, and cleanup of any aged receivables.
- Oversight of payroll funding and vendor payment cycles, including for seasonal employment peaks.
Risk, Insurance & Vendor Oversight
- General liability, workers' compensation, automobile, and youth-program-specific insurance coverage and renewals across all operating states.
- Risk assessment for new programs, partnerships, and markets.
- Management of outsourced accounting, financial, or HR partners, external auditors, tax preparers, insurance and benefits brokers, 401(k) and benefits vendors, and other finance-adjacent vendors, including scope, service levels, quality of work, and pricing at each renewal.
- Competitive reviews and selection of auditors, brokers, and outsourced partners as needs change.
- Financial review and approval of customer and partner contracts, including pricing, payment terms, cancellation and revenue recognition terms, and contractual risk, working with Sales, Operations, and internal legal or outside counsel.
- Partnership with the CEO and outside counsel on legal and regulatory matters with financial exposure.
People & Org Leadership
- Direct management of accounting and finance staff and outsourced partners, with oversight growing alongside the company.
- A close, standing partnership with the HR & Employment Compliance Manager on labor cost planning, benefits strategy and spend (including renewals with our broker), people policies with financial impact such as travel and expense rules, and seasonal staffing budgets. The HR manager leads employee relations and employment law compliance with outside counsel.
- Financial support for employment-related legal and compliance matters. Enrollment and plan administration sit with HR administration.
- Partnership with the executive team on org design and cost structure as BAM! adds programs and states.
Board & Executive Partnership
- Preparation of Board materials, financial packages, and strategic recommendations.
- Direct partnership with the CEO on company strategy, growth investments, and capital planning.
- Representation of BAM! in banking, audit, investor, and other external financial relationships.
What You Bring
- Commitment to the mission. You want your financial work to widen access for children in low-income communities, and you carry that conviction through strong seasons and hard ones.
- 10+ years of progressive finance leadership experience, including as a CFO, VP Finance, or Head of Finance who has owned forecasting, board reporting, and the accounting function, ideally at a multi-site, seasonal company of similar scale.
- Deep GAAP and accounting fundamentals, with experience owning external audit and multi-state tax compliance, and enough hands-on accounting depth to review (and challenge as necessary) an outsourced provider's journal entries and close.
- Direct experience managing seasonal cash flow, working capital, and forecasting through revenue peaks and troughs.
- Advanced FP&A skills: forecasts built from enrollment, staffing, and pricing assumptions, scenario modeling, and unit economics by product/program, site, customer, and season, with the ability to build the models yourself.
- Experience with multi-entity corporate structures, intercompany accounting, and consolidated reporting.
- Board-level financial reporting and presentation experience.
- Comfort partnering closely with HR on benefits, labor cost, policy, and compliance matters, without needing to be an HR expert.
- Excellent judgment and discretion with confidential financial and personnel data, including sound instincts about what belongs in third-party tools.
- Current, hands-on use of AI and other third-party tools, with a practical, curious approach to using them to improve the work.
- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, or a related field. CPA and/or MBA preferred.
What Sets the Right Candidate Apart
This is a build role. The finance function you design here is the one BAM! will run on for years, so we are looking for someone who has done that building work before rather than someone who has maintained a finance function someone else built. The strongest candidates bring:
- Experience modernizing financial systems. You have selected, implemented, and integrated ERP, CRM, and payroll platforms so that revenue, invoicing, and staffing data flow together instead of meeting in a spreadsheet, and you have set the data standards and ownership that keep field data (schedules, timekeeping) clean before it reaches the ledger. Experience with Sage Intacct, Salesforce, Paycom, and Bill.com is a strong plus.
- A track record of accelerating the close. You have moved a monthly close from weeks to days and built the process discipline that keeps it there.
- Cost accounting rigor at the program level. You have built site-level or program-level margin reporting from a thin starting point. A healthy company-wide P&L satisfies you less than knowing whether a specific program or site actually makes money.
- Command of complex labor cost. You have allocated variable-rate field labor across programs, sites, and clients, and you have automated that allocation rather than managing it by hand. You understand the payroll tax implications of a large, seasonal, multi-state hourly workforce.
- Seasonal, multi-site operating experience. Education, camps, child care, or another business where revenue and headcount vary by season.
- Public and institutional funding fluency. Direct experience with government contracts, school district funding, or a similarly reporting-intensive revenue base, including reimbursement cycles that run on their own calendar.
- Vendor and outsourcing judgment. You have managed an outsourced or offshore accounting relationship, and you know when to strengthen it and when to renegotiate scope, bring work in house, or change providers.
- Remediation experience. You have led complex, multi-year reconciliation or compliance remediation projects to a clean close.
- Cost discipline paired with credibility. You can hold specific, numbers-backed conversations with department leaders about cost structure, and you do it without burning cross-functional trust.
- A builder's instinct. You do your best work designing and improving a finance function, not holding one steady.
Requirements
- This role is fully remote, and we welcome candidates anywhere in the United States.
- You must be able to travel occasionally for Board meetings, key partner relationships, and periodic in-person working time with the CEO, who is based in the Washington, DC, area.
Why BAM!
- Your work reaches kids directly. Every point of margin you find, every week you cut off the close, and every forecast you sharpen turns into programs we can staff and children we can serve. Finance is upstream of the mission here, not adjacent to it.
- Own a piece of the outcome. This role carries a stock option grant, so the value you build shows up in what you own and not only in what we pay you.
- Build the backbone. You will have real latitude to design the systems, reporting, and infrastructure BAM! needs for its next stage of growth, with direct influence on how the company runs day to day.
- Lead through real complexity. Multi-state operations, sharp seasonality, an evolving corporate structure, and youth-serving compliance make this a finance function with serious substance.
- A growing sector with public backing. Expanded learning has become a sustained public investment, and BAM! has built the operating muscle to deliver it at quality and at scale.
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary of $200,000 to $275,000; annual performance bonus target of 25% of base salary; stock option grant. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, 401(k), basic life and AD&D, voluntary short-term disability, voluntary additional life/AD&D, voluntary hospital indemnity, and a generous PTO policy.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Brains and Motion Education is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to maintaining a diverse and inclusive work environment. Pursuant to the California Fair Chance Act and, where applicable, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, age, reproductive health decision making, veteran or military status, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or interview process, contact [email protected] and we will work with you.