VP of Finance

VP Finance

Location: New York City, with periodic travel to portfolio facilities

Reports to: COO

The Role

Ironstead is building the AI lab for manufacturing. We acquire and operate manufacturing

businesses, improve their performance, and use factory-floor data to develop AI that advances industrial production.

We are looking for someone to lead Ironstead’s finance function. You will own financial planning, cash management, and reporting across Ironstead and its portfolio companies, while helping the leadership team decide on acquisitions, investment, and growth. This is a hands-on role with substantial ownership: you will build the models, establish the processes, and turn financial and operational information into decisions.

The ideal candidate combines rigorous financial training with experience operating inside a high-growth startup. You may have started in investment banking or private equity before moving into corporate development, strategic finance, or a broader finance role at a company building something ambitious.

You should understand how to assess downside while recognizing when speed, investment, and calculated risk create greater long-term value. We take a first-principles approach to decisions and expect you to challenge assumptions, form an independent view, and help us move quickly with a clear understanding of the tradeoffs.

What You’ll Do

• Build and lead the finance function. Establish budgeting, forecasting, management reporting, and financial processes across Ironstead and its portfolio companies. Set priorities, select systems, and build the team and external support as the business grows.

• Own cash planning and capital allocation. Maintain a clear view of liquidity, commitments, and funding needs across acquisitions, factory operations, equipment, hiring, and AI development. Help leadership decide where each dollar can create the most value.

• Partner on acquisitions. Work with the M&A team on financial diligence, valuation, transaction structures, working capital, and post-close plans. Evaluate both the existing business and what it could become under Ironstead’s ownership.

• Lead financial integration. Bring acquired businesses into a consistent reporting and planning framework. Establish reliable cash forecasts, coordinate accounting and bookkeeping, and give local operators clear visibility into performance.

• Turn operating data into financial decisions. Connect throughput, utilization, production timelines, staffing, and capital expenditure to margins and cash flow. Work directly with factory leadership to identify constraints, evaluate investments, and improve performance.

• Support fundraising and board reporting. Own the financial models, analysis, and reporting needed for equity raises, debt financing, investor discussions, and board meetings.

• Be a strategic partner to the founders. Assess new opportunities, pressure-test assumptions, and make clear recommendations. Help determine when to accelerate investment, when to change course, and what information is needed to make the next decision.

What You Bring

• 7+ years of relevant experience in finance, corporate development, investment banking, or private equity, ideally including meaningful operating experience at a high-growth startup.

• Experience owning financial planning and business decisions. You have built budgets, managed cash forecasts, evaluated investments, and worked directly with leadership to translate analysis into action.

• Strong transaction skills. M&A underwriting, diligence, deal execution, or acquisition integration experience is highly valuable. An investment banking or private equity background followed by a startup finance or corporate development role is particularly relevant.

• First-principles judgment. You can build a view from the underlying economics, question conventional assumptions, and explain what would need to be true for an ambitious investment to succeed.

• Comfort with calculated risk and uncertainty. You can weigh upside, downside, and the cost of waiting; make recommendations with incomplete information; and update your position as new evidence emerges.

• The ability to build while operating. You are comfortable moving between detailed financial work and strategic discussions, establishing structure as priorities evolve, and taking responsibility for execution.

• An interest in manufacturing and industrial AI. Experience across multiple entities or in industrial businesses is useful. Curiosity about how factories actually work is essential.