This opportunity is a seat on the leadership team with a direct line to the founder-CEO. You own the entire finance, HR, and administration function, and you have the authority to shape how it's built.

The first year is where builders thrive: take ownership of the close across five entities, stand up audit-ready processes, and develop a team that includes a strong Senior Staff Accountant, an HR Generalist, a Recruiter, and offshore AP/AR support. An outsourced controller and HR consultant are in place now and will phase out as you build in-house. The finance stack is NetSuite and Workday Adaptive Insights, and John has already connected Claude AI to NetSuite for reporting. He wants a finance partner who pushes that work further.

Over time, this role grows into a true strategic partnership with the CEO, helping shape where the business goes next.

About the Company
Community Impact is a 20-year-old Texas media company with hyperlocal circulation larger than the New York Times. The business publishes community newspapers across Texas and runs a commercial printing operation: $33M in revenue across five legal entities and 41 P&Ls. Founder-CEO John Garrett still owns and runs the company, there are no outside investors, and he isn't building toward an exit. He wants Community Impact to be around in 100 years.

The Goal: Within 12 months, own an audit-ready close across five entities, develop a strong finance and HR team, and earn a seat as John's thought partner on growth decisions, so finance drives where the business goes next.

Outcomes You'll Be Responsible For

• Own the close across five entities within 90 days: Clean up open items (accruals, property tax exposure) and stand up an audit-ready process. Close the books personally before delegating.
• Build a cash management discipline that matches a founder-funded business: Cash forecasting, banking relationships, and liquidity reporting that treats the company's cash like your own.
• Stabilize and develop the finance and HR team: Inherit the current team, set clear roles, transition off outsourced support, and make HR run payroll, benefits, and compliance without incident.
• Upgrade reporting and fix the annual budgeting process: Use NetSuite, Workday Adaptive Insights, and AI tools to give the leadership team real-time financial visibility, and build a repeatable planning cadence across 41 P&Ls.
• Grow into the CEO's strategic partner: Help evaluate growth decisions and resource allocation through clean data, sound judgment, and open-book management.

Skills Needed to Apply
Qualifications:

• CPA (active or lapsed) with 8+ years of full-cycle accounting, GAAP close, and budgeting experience across multiple entities or P&Ls.
• Experience managing cash flow in a privately held, founder-led, or otherwise capital-conservative business.
• 3+ years managing a finance or accounting team of 3+, with a track record of developing junior staff and building repeatable processes.
• Working knowledge of NetSuite (or a comparable mid-market ERP) and a planning tool like Workday Adaptive Insights. AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot) are part of your workflow or something you're actively building in.
• Willing to own HR as a functional area: overseeing the team, setting the standard for how people are managed, and shaping the structure as the business evolves.

Nice to have:

• Exposure to media, printing, manufacturing, or other multi-location businesses with meaningful cost accounting.
• Experience with open-book management or teaching financial concepts to non-financial audiences.

Qualities

• Builder mentality: You're energized by walking into disorganization and creating structure that lasts.
• Conservative with cash: You treat company cash like your own and think long-term.
• Candid and warm: You tell the truth about the numbers in a way that earns trust, and you can command a room without being overbearing.
• Teacher by instinct: You translate P&L, cash flow, and unit economics into language a non-financial leader actually uses, and you're energized by open-book management.
• Values-aligned: Community Impact operates by its 5 Stones: Faith, Passion, Innovation, Quality, and Integrity. These are the operating philosophies.