Lead Finance Business Partner (Services & Value Engineering)

Job description

Celonis is the trusted platform to industrialize Enterprise AI. At our core is the Celonis Context Model — which combines process data, business knowledge, and intelligence into a living digital twin of the enterprise that AI can actually understand, turning AI's operational blind spots into operational clarity. World's leading companies trust Celonis and its global ecosystem of partners to make their AI agents, people, systems, and processes work together, achieving transformational outcomes. We believe there's a massive opportunity to unlock global productivity and sustainability by giving AI the context to understand how every business process really works. Join our mission to make processes work for people, companies, and the planet. The Team: The Finance organization at Celonis is a strategic partner to our business, responsible for steering growth, profitability, and capital allocation across the company. Within Finance, the Go-To-Market (GTM) Finance team partners closely with the GTM executive leadership (Sales, Value Engineering, Marketing, Services, Partner & Ecosystem) to drive predictable, efficient growth and to ensure financial discipline in every aspect of our go-to-market engine. The GTM Finance team is critical to Celonis’ successful go-to-market execution and operates in a highly visible environment to executive leadership. The goals and objectives of the GTM Finance team include: • Guiding and supporting executive GTM leadership to achieve their operational & financial objectives • Providing objective, data-driven insights that assist in strategic decision making • Acting as a trusted advisor and advocate to the GTM leadership • Developing and operating relevant KPI measurement frameworks to help steering business performance • Contributing to drive the overall financial success of Celonis The Role: As Lead Finance Business Partner (reporting into the VP, GTM Finance), you will go beyond traditional FP&A to act as a strategic advisor to the leaders of our Services and Value Engineering organizations. You will own the financial modeling, delivery economics, and operational metrics that drive services gross margin, utilization, and value-selling efficiency. The ideal candidate understands that Professional Services is the accelerator for customer time-to-value and a lever on margin, and that Value Engineering is critical to winning and expanding enterprise deals — and that both must be steered with disciplined cost, capacity, and ROI management. The work you’ll do: Strategic Financial Partnership • Advisory: Serve as the primary financial co-pilot to the Services and Value Engineering leadership • Margin Optimization: Own the Gross Margin modeling for the Services and Value Engineering organizations, identifying levers to optimize delivery costs without sacrificing customer satisfaction. • Investment ROI: Evaluate the financial impact and ROI of headcount additions, tools, and strategic initiatives (e.g., insourcing vs. subcontracting delivery capacity, or scaling the VE coverage model). Planning, Forecasting & Capacity Modeling • Capacity Planning: Partner with Services and VE leadership to challenge and optimize their capacity and utilization models — stress-testing assumptions, identifying efficiency levers, and ensuring hiring and subcontractor use stay aligned with pipeline, bookings, and delivery backlog. • Budgeting: Lead the annual budgeting and monthly forecasting cycles for headcount, program spend, and variable compensation/bonuses for assigned departments. • Revenue Forecasting: Partner with Services leadership to forecast professional services revenue recognition based on project milestones, backlog, and book-to-burn ratios. SaaS Metrics & Operational Analytics • Drive Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Define, track, and analyze critical operational and financial metrics The qualifications you need: • Experience: 8+ years of experience in FP&A, corporate