Head of Data - Finance

Canva

$274K — $417K *
Finance & Insurance
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of experience leading teams within a Finance function under compliance scrutiny
  • Deep understanding of data flow and governance as critical engineering work
  • Strong coding skills with experience in data modeling
  • Ability to effectively communicate complex data stories to senior leadership
  • Familiarity with forecasting and planning processes, ensuring data reliability

Responsibilities

  • Lead a team of data scientists and analytics engineers in Finance
  • Own and maintain the governance framework for top-line performance metrics
  • Develop data models and pipelines for FP&A forecasting
  • Collaborate with Accounting and Tax to enhance data quality
  • Drive the evolution of Finance's data architecture and standards
  • Integrate AI and automation into Finance processes
  • Act as a technical partner to Finance leadership, including the CFO

Benefits

  • Equity packages aligning employee success with company growth
  • Health benefit plans for employee wellbeing
  • 401(k) retirement plan with company contributions
  • Inclusive parental leave policy for all parents
  • Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance for personal and office needs
  • Flexible leave options for work-life balance
Full Job Description
Job Description

What you'd be doing in this role

As Canva scales change continues to be part of our DNA. But we like to think that's all part of the fun. So this will give you the flavour of the type of things you'll be working on when you start, but this will likely evolve.

Data sits centrally within Canva's Engineering org, and we place senior data leaders inside the business groups that need us most. This role reports to the Global Head of Data Science, and places you inside Finance - partnering with FP&A, Accounting, Tax and Investor Relations - to lead the data science and analytics capability that Finance leadership, including our CFO, rely on to run the business.

At the moment, this role is focused on:
  • Leading a team of data scientists and analytics engineers embedded in Finance, setting the technical bar and the priorities
  • Owning the metric governance framework and single source of truth for Canva's top-line performance metrics, for both operational finance and investor reporting
  • Owning the data models, pipelines and metric definitions that power FP&A's forecasting and planning, including the feeds into Anaplan and board-level reporting
  • Partnering with Accounting, Tax and Investor Relations to improve data quality (accuracy / completeness) with these teams and to make financial reporting faster, more automated and less manual
  • Leading the evolution of Finance's data architecture - modelling standards, layer design and orchestration patterns in DBT and Snowflake
  • Bringing AI and automation into Finance's processes in ways that are genuinely useful, and strategically partnering with Finance on the right Data architecture / foundations to be AI/AI-agent ready
  • Acting as the technical and analytical partner to Finance leadership, with regular exposure to the CFO and her leadership team

You're probably a match if
  • You've led distributed teams across timezones inside a Finance function before - somewhere that's been through the kind of scrutiny that comes with SOX compliance or public-company reporting
  • You think in systems: how data flows from source through pipelines and semantic layers to model and report, and you treat governance and controls as core engineering work, not overhead
  • You're equally comfortable writing code or building a model yourself, and presenting the story behind the numbers to a CFO
  • You set a high technical bar while staying genuinely curious about the business problem underneath the data
  • Financial modelling experience is a bonus but not required - what matters is understanding what forecasting and planning processes need from data, and making those inputs reliable and audit-ready
  • You're a strong communicator, equally comfortable balancing technical detail with engineering teams and also presenting to senior leadership


About the team

Data sits centrally within Canva's Engineering org, embedded in the business groups that need us most - Marketing, International, and now Finance. Our Finance Data & Analytics team owns the Finance Data Platform, self-serve reporting for the business, and the metric integrity that underpins everything from quarterly close to investor reporting.

What's in it for you?

Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard - and we do - but you'll experience lots of moments of magic, connectivity and fun woven throughout life at Canva, too. We also offer a range of benefits to set you up for every success in and outside of work.

Here's a taste of what's on offer:
  • Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
  • Health benefits plans to support you and your wellbeing
  • 401(k) retirement plan with company contribution
  • Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
  • An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more
  • Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and supports you personally

Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.

At Canva we value fairness, and we strive to provide competitive, market-informed compensation whilst ensuring internal equity within the team in each region. We make hiring decisions based on your skills, experience and our overall assessment of what we observed and learnt in the hiring process. The target salary range for this position is $274,000 to $417,000. When calculating offers, we make salary decisions based on market data and candidates' skills and experience.

Other stuff to know

We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.

We celebrate all types of skills and backgrounds at Canva so even if you don't feel like your skills quite match what's listed above - we still want to hear from you!

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.

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