A senior FP&A hire for a PE-backed platform
A PE-backed business-services platform with $95 million in revenue and six business units hired a senior FP&A analyst through Opus. The analyst built a common forecast, identified accounts with work outside their agreed scope, and presented options to the CFO and business-unit leaders. Management approved contract and delivery changes; the analyst tracked their contribution after implementation.
By month six, reforecast turnaround fell from six business days to two and CFO board-pack preparation fell from 16 hours to four. Read the anonymized FP&A engagement for the assessment, assigned work and measured results.
Start with the company and the person who will manage the hire
A finance manager joining one business needs a different brief from a professional supporting several companies. Name the company, reporting line and first assignment before deciding which title to search for.
For a single-company role, the portfolio company's manager sets priorities and reviews the work. The sponsor can participate in the hiring decision or set reporting requirements where that is part of the company's process. Write down those responsibilities so the candidate knows whose decisions govern the role.
If the work spans several portfolio companies, name one manager who can resolve competing requests. List the companies the person will support, the systems they need to use and the people who accept their work. That gives the search a defined scope and gives the eventual hire a place to take a blocked decision.
Opus's role is recruiting and ongoing employment support. Your management team retains responsibility for the person's daily work, business decisions and performance expectations.
Choose the role from the work that is waiting
The role descriptions below are starting points for a hiring brief. Adapt them to the company's systems, existing team and authority levels.
| Work that needs an owner | Role to consider | Put this in the search brief |
|---|---|---|
| The close needs a clear owner, reconciliations need review, and accounting controls need consistent application | Controller or senior accounting leader | Entities and accounting basis; close responsibilities; team supervision; reporting requirements; who approves accounting judgments |
| Finance needs someone to manage defined reporting workstreams and coordinate the people and systems behind them | Senior finance manager | Reports and close workstreams owned; systems used; direct reports; review responsibilities; decisions retained by the CFO or controller |
| Leadership needs forecasts, variance analysis and explanations of what changed | Senior FP&A analyst or finance professional with FP&A scope | Planning model; forecast cadence; operating inputs; scenario questions; who reviews assumptions and approves the forecast |
| An operating process has recurring exceptions, unclear handoffs or reporting that nobody owns | Operations manager | Process boundaries; exception queue; teams involved; decisions the manager can make; changes that need approval |
| Engineering needs a senior person accountable for an agreed product or service | Senior software engineer | Codebase and service; current team; technical responsibilities; review and release process; required working hours |
| Marketing needs an experienced owner for a channel or a defined growth program | Senior growth or performance marketing manager | Channels and budget authority; reporting sources; attribution limits; expected collaboration with sales and product |
A broad title can hide two different jobs. If the finance hire must own accounting controls and build a forecast, describe both parts and decide which expertise is essential. If the operations hire is expected to change a process across several companies, define who can approve those changes.
For finance searches, separate accounting ownership from planning and analysis before reviewing candidates. The US GAAP and NetSuite finance-manager guide explains how to assess actual close and systems experience. The senior FP&A work sample provides a separate exercise for analysis and business judgment.
What Opus handles, and what stays with your team
A dedicated Opus hire works under your manager. The arrangement combines a recruiting search with ongoing employment administration.
| Responsibility | Your company | Opus |
|---|---|---|
| Define the role | Names the work, manager, authority and required experience | Builds the search around the role profile and scorecard |
| Evaluate candidates | Reviews the evidence, interviews finalists and makes the hiring decision | Sources and vets candidates, then supplies profiles, scorecards and references |
| Prepare the start | Arranges systems access, internal introductions and the first assignment | Coordinates the placement and the employment support included in the agreement |
| Manage the work | Sets priorities, reviews outputs and manages performance | Provides the ongoing placement support in the engagement |
| Administer the placement | Confirms company-side responsibilities and raises changes through the agreed process | Handles contracts, payroll, benefits and compliance support |
The written proposal should identify the responsibilities for your particular engagement. If several companies are involved, bring their requirements to the scoping conversation, including who approves each search and who receives the relevant information.
You can review the staffing model and payroll and employment support before discussing a role.
How the search moves from a brief to a hire
Define the role with your hiring manager
We start with the work the person will own and the evidence your manager needs to see. Include the tools, reporting environment, working hours and experience the role requires. If the sponsor and portfolio company both have expectations, resolve who owns each decision in the brief.
Review candidates against the same scorecard
Opus sources and vets candidates for the defined role. Your team receives profiles, scorecards and references to review before its interviews.
Use the interview to test the work behind the resume. For a controller, ask which close decisions the candidate owned and who reviewed them. For an operations manager, ask them to walk through an exception they handled, the decision they made and the evidence they used. For an engineer, use the technical bar your team expects for the service they will join.
These are suggested interview directions. The hiring manager should agree on the assessment and evaluation criteria for the actual role.
Choose the person and prepare their first assignment
Your team interviews the finalists and chooses whom to hire. Before the start, identify the reviewer, prepare access and set a first assignment with a defined output.
For finance work, specify the records available and who can approve accounting decisions. For operational work, name the process owner and the changes the hire can make. If records or access are missing, record who will resolve the gap so the new hire can distinguish work they can begin from work that depends on someone else.
Continue with your management and Opus employment support
Your manager directs the person's work. Opus continues the contracts, payroll, benefits and compliance support included in the placement service.
Opus publishes a shortlist of three vetted candidates in five days and an average of about 14 days from brief received to hired across its service. Those are company-reported service figures. Confirm the timeline for your role during the search; they are not a separate PE-portfolio hiring result.
Prepare a search brief your team can use
Use this suggested template to turn an open role into a recruiting conversation. It is a planning aid. Replace each field with your company's information and flag anything that still needs a decision.
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Portfolio company | The company the person will join, plus any other companies they are expected to support |
| Hiring manager | The person who sets daily priorities and reviews performance |
| Work the hire will own | The recurring responsibilities, outputs and problems the manager expects this person to take over |
| First assignment | One specific output the manager can review after the person has the required context and access |
| Reviewer | The person qualified and authorized to accept that output |
| Decisions and approvals | What the hire can decide, what needs approval and where a disputed request goes |
| Systems and records | The tools they will use, records available and any access still being arranged |
| Experience to demonstrate | Relevant work the candidate must have done, including systems, scope and responsibility |
| Working hours | Required hours and overlap with the team that will manage the person |
| Budget | The approved scope and the person who can approve the provider proposal |
| Interview participants | The people who assess the candidate, the questions each will cover and who makes the final choice |
| Start requirements | Internal introductions, equipment and access that must be ready |
A useful first assignment has an output, a reviewer and the inputs needed to produce it. "Improve finance" leaves those unanswered. "Prepare a reconciliation file for the specified accounts, document unresolved items and bring it to the controller for review" gives the candidate and manager a defined task. This is an illustrative assignment, not a claim about an Opus customer or a promised outcome.
For a multi-company role, complete the company and decision fields for every business the person will support. The manager responsible for priorities should be able to explain what happens when two companies need the same person at the same time.
Select these fields and copy them into your own document. Add your company details and mark any open decisions before the recruiting conversation.
Keep the first hire's brief useful for the next search
After the person starts, keep a record of what the hiring process established and what the manager learned during onboarding. A role brief, assessment criteria and access checklist can be useful for another company, provided its work and systems match.
Before reusing them, review what changed: the company, reporting line, authority, tools, records and work expected. A common provider does not make those inputs identical across the portfolio.
Our guide to Latin American hiring for PE portfolio companies covers the deeper provider comparison, portfolio decision rights, assessment examples and procurement questions. It also contains a fictional post-acquisition example showing how to define the first deliverable.
Retention and replacement terms
Ask each provider for the reporting period, population, denominator, exit reasons and whether replacements count as retained. A 90-day guarantee and a one-year retention rate measure different things.
Opus reports 97% one-year retention on its measurement page, with the published limits. That company-reported figure is not a PE-portfolio cohort study. Review the written replacement terms separately. Opus publishes a lifetime replacement guarantee with no cap or time limit; its replacement-guarantee page explains the commitment.