The Cloud Financial Operations Director will be responsible for developing and leading QAD's FinOps practice.  This leader will drive cost optimization, improve financial visibility and establish a culture of financial accountability across our cloud operations, support and other business teams.  This is a highly collaborative role that requires a blend of technical expertise, financial acumen, and strong communication skills.The selected candidate must work/reside in the Eastern or Central time zone in the U.S.Key ResponsibilitiesSubscription Gross Margin Analysis, modelling, and monitoring of subscription gross margins and unit economics, including hosting, customer support and cloud operations spend.Value Creation Workstream:  Program Manage our VCP workstream moving from various hosting providers and old versions to a single version on a single modern multi-tenant platform.  Lead the financial planning and outcome controlling/monitoring of the impact of the efficiency actions we will execute on across cloud hosting, support and cloud operations.5 Year Financial Model:  Develop and maintain a five year financial model for cloud hosting costs and subscription margins to support strategic planning and long-term business goals.  Model expected margin improvements based on strategic initiatives and then monitor the results.Lead FinOps Strategy: Develop, implement, and manage QAD's FinOps strategy, including policies, processes, and best practices.Cost Management & Optimization:  Actively monitor cloud hosting costs on a daily basis to identify anomalies and provide real-time recommendations for cost reduction and efficiency.  Drive cost optimization initiatives across all major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP).Financial Visibility & Reporting: Create and maintain dashboards and reports to provide clear, actionable insights into cloud spend for engineering, finance, and leadership teams.Budgeting & Forecasting: Collaborate with engineering and finance to develop and manage cloud budgets and forecastsResource Governance: Establish and enforce tagging, naming conventions, and other resource governance policies to ensure accurate cost allocation and reporting.Stakeholder Collaboration: Partner with engineering, product, finance, and procurement teams to embed FinOps principles into the software development lifecycle.Tooling & Automation: Evaluate and implement FinOps tools and automation solutions (eg CloudZero) to improve efficiency and accuracy.Education & Evangelism: Champion FinOps best practices across the organization, providing training and guidance to various teams.Cloud Vendor Management: Work closely with cloud provider account teams to understand and leverage discounts, reserved instances, and other cost-saving programs.
