About the roleLoyal is hiring a Director, FP&A to enhance and run the company's financial planning and analysis function. You will be the first hire to a building finance team, reporting directly to our VP, Finance, as the company prepares to move from a clinical-stage organization to a commercial one.
This role owns the company model. You will be the analytical spine of a company doing two things at once, deploying capital across a portfolio of multi-year R&D programs and constructing the infrastructure required for future commercial operations. Your primary business partnership is with R&D, clinical operations, CMC, and program leadership, where the majority of our spend lives and where forecast accuracy is paramount.
You will start as a team of one and are expected to build the function: evaluate and select our FP&A platform, implement it, define a revised planning calendar and forecast cadence, and establish the reporting standards. This is an opportunity to shape the FP&A function rather than inheriting a set structure. We expect to expand the finance team as we approach commercial launch, with the timing and shape of that expansion tied to program milestones.
This is not a role for someone who wants to inherit a working system and maintain it. The right person has helped build FP&A infrastructure before at a biotech or another R&D-heavy, milestone-based organization, knows what good looks like pre- and post-revenue, and is ready to do the work to get there.
Your daily work will include- Own the company-wide financial model end to end: integrated P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow across pipeline programs, milestone timelines, and capital deployment scenarios.
- Serve as the embedded finance partner to R&D leadership. Build and maintain clinical study budgets and forecasts driven by enrollment curves, site activation, per-patient costs, and CRO contract structures. Reconcile accruals against contracted work and actual study progress, and own the variance narrative when they diverge.
- Partner with CMC and manufacturing leadership. Build and maintain forecasts driven by campaign timing, registration and validation batches, tech transfer, analytical and stability programs, and CMO contract structures. Implement enhanced inventory and cost-of-goods tracking ahead of commercial launch.
- Help design and run the annual budget and long-range plan, including the department-level target-setting process and the headcount plan that underpins it.
- Develop and deliver monthly forecast vs. actuals reporting at the department level, with variance analysis and a narrative crisp enough to go to the VP, Finance and Executive team without rework.
- Lead the selection and implementation of Loyal's FP&A platform. No tool has been purchased yet, deliberately - we want the person who will implement and deploy it to have a real say in choosing it.
- Partner to build the quarterly board financial package - standardized KPIs, variance analysis, and cash runway narrative - along with financial content for investor updates, diligence requests, and financing events.
- Crosstrain with accounting and provide hands-on support through close, audit, and system transitions. We will have a one team philosophy in Finance, with FP&A and Accounting working closely as we support the growing organization.
- Help define how the function scales. As the team expands in step with program and commercial milestones, you will shape the roles, the division of coverage, and the standards new team members inherit.
About you - 8-12 years of progressive finance and FP&A experience, with meaningful time in animal health, biotech, pharma, or another R&D-heavy business that creates value by achieving technical milestones.
- You have owned clinical study financial planning. You understand how enrollment assumptions, site activation timing, and CRO contract structures translate into spend curves and accruals.
- You have worked on CMC or manufacturing financial planning. You understand how campaign timing translates into spend curves, and how R&D-stage manufacturing cost becomes an inventoriable cost at launch.
- Expert financial modeler. You build and audit integrated three-statement models, headcount models, and scenario analyses from scratch, and you can defend every assumption in them.
- Hands-on experience with an FP&A platform is required. Having been a core participant in an implementation is a significant advantage. We want you to arrive with a point of view so we can select and implement a tool quickly.
- You have helped build and/or scale an FP&A function - planning calendar, forecast cadence, reporting standards, budget-owner discipline - not just operated inside a mature one.
- Strong accounting fundamentals: revenue recognition, accruals, working capital, and how the three statements connect. You are comfortable enough in the accounting seat to support close when the team needs it.
- You present financial results, variance narratives, and capital strategy clearly to executive and board audiences. Written and verbal communication is precise and direct. You translate model output into decision-relevant narrative.
- Advanced Excel is table stakes.
- You are low ego, high integrity, and a clear and concise communicator.
- You actively embrace opportunities to leverage AI and automation to streamline financial processes and build efficient finance infrastructure.
- You operate with a high degree of autonomy. You escalate appropriately, build systems that outlast you, and are comfortable in a fast-paced environment where the scope is broad, the team is lean, and the work matters.
- Intellectual curiosity and genuine interest in Loyal's mission to extend the healthy lifespan of dogs.
Preferred attributes- Experience supporting a first commercial launch and establishing financial infrastructure for a revenue-generating operation.
- Experience implementing Datarails specifically or migrating a company from spreadsheet-based planning to a platform.
- Prior exposure to system implementations, both ERP and FP&A tools.
- Experience managing or mentoring FP&A analysts, with a track record of developing talent.
- Familiarity with veterinary or animal health regulatory and commercial dynamics.
- CPA, CFA, or FPAC
Salary Range: $170,000 - $260,000
Loyal benefits- Full-coverage health insurance - medical, dental and vision - for you and your dependents
- $1,000 home office equipment stipend
- $1,200/year learning budget for books, courses, etc.
- $250/month wellness budget for gym, cleaners, spa, food, etc.
- All 3-day weekends are turned into 4-day weekends
- Unlimited vacation and paid holidays
- Paw-ternity leave - adopt a dog and get a day off with your new family member
- Competitive salary
- Company equity options grant for new hires
