FF- VP of Finances

RemotelyHR is hiring on behalf of French Florist.

Company Overview

French Florist is a floral boutique reimagining what it means to give and receive flowers. Our handcrafted arrangements are intentionally designed by expert floral designers using only the highest-quality blooms sourced from the best farms around the world. Whether for celebration, connection, or simply delight, our flowers do more than decorate, they elevate and transform moments.

With thriving corporate boutiques in Los Angeles and a rapidly expanding franchise network nationwide, French Florist is on a mission to create a more loving and compassionate world through flowers. As purveyors of beauty and connection, we don’t just deliver arrangements, we deliver emotion, meaning, and magic.

Role Summary

The VP, Finance owns the Finance seat on our accountability chart and is accountable for the financial health of the entire French Florist system: our corporate boutiques, our franchisor, and the franchise owners who run their own businesses under our brand. This is a leadership team seat. You will sit in our weekly Level 10 meetings and quarterly planning, have a real voice in how we invest, and be the person who tells us when a decision does not make financial sense.

This role exists because finance ownership at French Florist has been spread across too many people, and that fragmentation has a cost. Our books are in better shape than most franchisors at our stage, and fractional support and AI agents have kept the core work moving. Being in decent shape is not the same as being ready for the growth in front of us. We are adding locations quickly, and we need one leader who owns the controls, the reporting rhythm, the margin, and the financial infrastructure the next stage of growth will run on.

Finance here has a dual mandate. Our franchise owners have to hit their profit goals, and so do we. Most of the time those move together. When they do not, holding both is the job, and it is a big part of why we are hiring someone who understands franchising rather than someone who has only seen one side of the relationship.

We are just as clear about what this role is not. It is not a reporting role, and it is not a capital markets role. Capital structure, fundraising, and board and investor relationships sit with our CEO, and you will support those conversations with the numbers. Your job is to find, protect, and grow margin, and to build a finance function that stays ahead of our growth instead of chasing it.

Being AI-native is a requirement for this role, not a nice-to-have. Our finance function already runs on AI agents for bookkeeping, payables, receivables, and routine FP&A, and we intend to push that much further. We need a leader who uses AI every day in their own work, knows how to design and supervise agents that do real accounting and reporting work, and holds that work to the same standard of accuracy and control as work done by people. If AI is something you plan to learn on the job, this is not the right seat.

Key Responsibilities

1. Finance Seat Ownership & Leadership

• Own the Finance seat as a full member of the leadership team. You decide what the function needs to accomplish each quarter, propose the Rocks, and make the case for the resources required to get them done.

• Set the finance strategy and own the Finance scorecard. You decide what the function measures, set the goals, and are accountable when they slip.

• Partner with the President on resource allocation, annual planning, and the operating priorities of the business.

• Build an investment decision framework (ROI, payback, risk) and make sure every major investment gets evaluated through the same lens before we commit to it.

• Own the finance agent stack and the outside partners around it. Design, build, and supervise the AI agents that run bookkeeping, payables, receivables, and routine FP&A, set the review and control standards for their work, and decide when to keep, fix, or replace any agent or partner.

• Keep pushing what AI does in finance. Every quarter, identify the next piece of manual work that should move to an agent, make it happen, and document the controls around it so the work stays accurate and auditable.

• Define when and how the function should grow beyond this seat, including when to add the next finance role (such as FP&A or a controller) and what it should own versus what AI and outside partners should keep handling.

2. Controls, Close & Compliance

• Own the monthly close and its accuracy across all three entities: the corporate boutiques, the franchisor, and the reporting relationship with our franchise owners.

• Finalize and enforce a Delegation of Authority with clear approval thresholds, and make sure spend is coded correctly to our standard chart of accounts.

• Document and run the accounts payable and accounts receivable processes, including collections on past-due franchise owner balances.

• Run the finance side of our compensation plan: set the annual merit budget, accrue bonuses, and confirm each quarter whether the company bonus gate was met, for the President’s sign-off.

• Own tax and regulatory compliance: monthly sales tax, 1099s, annual state and federal filings, local business taxes, and new state requirements as we enter new markets.

• Own the franchisor financial statements and annual audit required for our Franchise Disclosure Document, and partner with legal counsel on state registration questions about financial condition.

3. Margin & Revenue Growth

• Own the margin lines that do not come from selling flowers: vendor rebates and commissions, payment processing revenue share, and other system-wide programs. Build our system-wide supplier and partner programs so they strengthen owner and franchisor profitability together.

• Get every vendor program onto signed written terms, track every eligible purchase, claim every rebate we are owed, and keep the franchisor’s receivables cleanly separated from the boutiques’ balances with the same vendors.

• Identify new supplier programs and partnerships that create value for owners and the franchisor, and build the business case for each one.

• Own the accuracy of royalty and brand fund calculations, including true-ups, and make sure every franchise owner is billed what their agreement says.

• Model the financial impact of system changes, such as pricing, product margins, or bringing paid media in-house, separately for the franchisor and for franchise owners before we decide.

4. Planning, Reporting & Visibility

• Build and own the annual budget and quarterly reforecast, and deliver a monthly budget versus actual package with clear variance explanations the leadership team can act on.

• Embed rebate, royalty, and margin tracking into standard reporting so leadership can see them without asking.

• Define the franchise owner financial dashboard and benchmarks, including net operating income targets by months open, so owners and our Franchise Success team can see how each location is performing against the plan.

• Decide what we measure, where the data comes from, which sources we trust, and where reporting lives. Recommend build, buy, or hybrid for our reporting architecture.

• Keep internal reporting and franchise owner-facing reporting clearly separated, and hold both to the same standard of accuracy.

5. Franchise Owner Financial Health

• Treat franchise owner unit economics as part of your job, not someone else’s. Our growth depends on owners who make money, and the system is only as strong as its weakest location.

• Partner with Franchise Success to give owners the financial tools, benchmarks, and guidance they need to run profitable businesses, and to spot locations that are falling behind while there is still time to help.

• Hold our corporate boutiques to the same financial standards, chart of accounts, and benchmarks as any franchise location.

• Remember that a financial standard you set is one every franchise owner will be held to. Make it clear, make it fair, and make it something an owner running their own business can actually follow.

Where This Seat Ends

• The CEO owns capital structure, fundraising, and board and investor relations. You supply the analysis and the numbers that support those decisions.

• Procurement and Product own vendor selection and cost of goods performance. Finance owns the rebate program’s financial integrity and holds the business to its margin targets.

• Franchise Success owns the relationship with each franchise owner. Finance owns the numbers that relationship runs on.

Success Measures

Within your first 6 to 12 months, we will know this seat is working when the following are true.

Operational Outcomes

• The monthly close lands on a fixed business day that you set in your first 90 days, and it lands on that day every month after.

• A budget versus actual package with variance commentary reaches the leadership team every month, on schedule, without anyone having to ask for it.

• The Delegation of Authority is approved and in use, and spend above approval thresholds goes through it every time.

• Zero missed sales tax, 1099, state, or federal filing deadlines, and zero penalties.

• The franchisor audit and FDD financial statements are delivered on schedule for the annual renewal, and no state registration is delayed because of finance.

• Within your first 12 months, the recurring work of the close, reconciliations, and standard reporting runs through AI agents with documented human review, and you can show the leadership team what moved to agents, what it saved, and what controls sit around it.

Business Impact

• Every active vendor program has a signed agreement, and rebates are claimed on every eligible purchase.

• Rebate and commission income grows year over year, with every program documented and reported transparently.

• Royalty and brand fund billings reconcile every month, and true-ups stop being a surprise to franchise owners.

• The franchise owner financial dashboard is live and used in Franchise Success reviews, and the share of locations meeting their net operating income target for their months open trends up over the year.

• Every major investment decision comes with an ROI and payback case before it is approved.

Leadership & Collaboration

• The leadership team trusts the numbers and uses them to make decisions, rather than debating whether they are right.

• Leaders bring you in early on spending and pricing decisions because you make those decisions better, not slower.

• Franchise owners see Finance as a partner in their profitability, not just the team that drafts their royalties.

• You tell the leadership team clearly and early when a plan does not hold up financially, including plans that are popular.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive finance experience, including at least 3 years as the senior finance leader of a company or business unit, reporting to a CEO, President, or CFO, with ownership of the P&L, budgeting, forecasting, and close.

• Demonstrated, hands-on AI fluency in finance. You can show us specific workflows you have personally built or redesigned with AI, such as reconciliations, close tasks, variance analysis, or forecasting, and explain how you verified the output. We will ask you to walk us through real examples during the interview process.

• Franchisor finance experience strongly preferred. You should understand royalty and brand fund mechanics, franchise owner unit economics, FDD financial statements and audits, and multi-state franchise compliance.

• Experience in a multi-location consumer, retail, or hospitality business, ideally one that includes inventory, purchasing, and supply chain.

• A track record of building controls, processes, and reporting from an early-stage foundation, not just maintaining what someone else built.

• Experience creating new margin, such as supplier rebate programs, vendor partnerships, or revenue share agreements, with results you can point to in the numbers.

• Deep hands-on accounting knowledge. You can review a close, find what is wrong with it, and explain why.

• Experience leading through outside partners, firms, and automated tools rather than a large in-house team.

Skills & Capabilities

• You are creative and proactive about money. You look for new margin instead of only reporting on the old.

• You own the numbers, not just the reports about them. When a margin slips, you treat it as yours to fix.

• You are AI-native. Using AI is how you work every day, not a project you are planning. You reach for it first, you know where it is reliable and where it needs a human check, and you would rather spend your time on judgment and invention than on spreadsheet hours.

• You hold two sides at once. You can protect the franchisor’s profitability and the franchise owner’s profitability in the same conversation, and you know which one a decision is really about.

• You make finance understandable. You can explain a variance to a leadership team or a margin problem to a franchise owner in plain language that leads to a decision.

• You practice radical candor. You will push back on a spending decision, including one a senior leader is excited about, and you will do it with respect and a better alternative.

• You are comfortable with ambiguity and you build structure where none exists, without slowing the business down.

• You are highly organized, detail-oriented, and you protect the integrity of the numbers.

• You operate with discretion. This role sees sensitive compensation, ownership, and franchise owner financial information.

What Makes This Role Exciting

• You own a seat at the leadership table of a rapidly scaling national franchise brand, with real authority over the function and a real voice in where the business goes.

• You get to build the finance infrastructure for a franchise system early, while it is still 10 times easier than it will be later.

• You get to build our system-wide supplier and partner programs so they strengthen owner and franchisor profitability together, and point to results you personally created within your first year.

• Your work directly shapes whether every franchise owner in our system builds a profitable business.

• You get to design a modern, AI-enabled finance function from the start rather than retrofitting one.

• A mission-driven brand focused on beauty, connection, and craftsmanship, with a leadership team that cares about how we treat people.

Who Thrives Here

• Someone who wants to own the numbers and be accountable for what they say.

• Someone who gets energy from building programs that make the whole system more profitable.

• Someone who cares about franchise owners making money as much as the franchisor making money.

• Someone who would rather have the hard conversation about a spending decision now than explain a miss later.

• Someone who likes building the system, not just running it.

This Role Is Probably Not For You If

• You want a CFO role centered on capital raising, M&A, or investor relations. That work sits with our CEO.

• You need a team of accountants reporting to you to be effective. Your leverage here is AI, outside partners, and the systems you build.

• You see finance as reporting what happened rather than changing what happens next.

• You are uncomfortable telling senior leaders no, or yes with conditions.

• You want a function that is already fully built. A lot of this is yours to design.

• You are still deciding whether AI belongs in finance. Here it already does, and this seat is expected to lead it.

Compensation and Benefits

• $165,000 to $185,000 base salary, based on experience.

• Quarterly bonus with an annual target of 10% of base salary, paid on the Finance department’s Rocks and scorecard once the company hits its quarterly goal.

• Stock option grant under the French Florist stock plan, with vesting beginning after 1 year of employment.

• Health insurance (medical, dental, vision) + voluntary benefits (disability, critical illness, etc.)

• 401k retirement program