Senior Manager, Accounting Team Lead

Job description

ROLE PURPOSE: Ensure high-quality, consistent client delivery across an assigned team by enabling, coaching, and coordinating Client Leads and staff. The Team Lead is accountable for team effectiveness — not just individual client outcomes. This is a leadership role that requires the ability to develop people, manage execution quality at scale, and maintain Graphite’s delivery standards across a full book of client engagements. Team Leads also carry formal people management responsibilities including performance reviews, career coaching, and development planning. WHAT IT TAKES TO SUCCEED AS A TEAM LEAD HERE AT GRAPHITE FINANCIAL This is a fully remote leadership role within a client-facing professional services organization. You lead a team within a diverse and distributed workforce. Your standards, communication, and judgment define what your team delivers. The following qualities are essential. Leadership Without Proximity: You set clear expectations, provide consistent coaching, and hold your team accountable — entirely through remote communication and structured operating rhythms. Your presence is felt through the quality of what your team produces. Client Credibility: You maintain the technical depth and professional presence to engage senior client contacts directly when needed. Your team’s standards reflect yours and you invest in both. Responsiveness at Scale: You model the responsiveness you expect from your team. Delayed decisions and slow escalations create client risk. You move fast, communicate clearly, and resolve things. Coaching Over Fixing: Your job is to make Client Leads better — not to do their work for them. When something goes wrong, your first instinct is to coach, not do. Accountability for Team Outcomes: You own what your team delivers. You do not deflect to process, capacity, or individual performance. You identify problems early and solve them. Professional Standards Enforcement: You hold Client Leads and Associates to a high bar for written communication, client interaction, and deliverable quality. This is not optional in a remote, client-facing environment. CORE RESPONSIBILITIES Team Enablement & Oversight • Coach Client Leads on solution design, client management, delivery approach, and professional judgment • Review client engagement approaches for technical risk, complexity, or inconsistency with firm standards — and redirect when necessary • Serve as the first escalation point for delivery challenges, client issues, and team capacity problems • Ensure all work produced by the team meets Graphite’s quality standards before it reaches clients People Leadership • Conduct formal performance reviews and ongoing career development conversations with direct reports • Identify capability gaps within the team and address them through coaching, training, or other resources • Build a team environment where Client Leads operate with confidence and accountability, not dependency Capacity & Quality Management • Balance workload across Client Leads and adjust resourcing to manage close peaks, client demands, and coverage risks • Drive execution consistency across clients without creating bureaucratic overhead • Ensure no client engagement is dependent on a single person — cross-training and documentation are standing expectations Client Execution • Maintain a purposefully limited personal client book using direct client execution to stay technically current, model the standards you set for your team, and remain credible as a coach and escalation resource Cross-Team Coordination • Partner cross-functionally across service lines and teams to translate firm-wide standards into practical, client-ready execution within your team • Surface recurring delivery issues, client patterns, and improvement opportunities to the Director proactively QUALIFICATIONS • Bachelor’s degree in Accounting required; CPA required • 7–10 years of accounting experience including at least 2 years in a client lead, manager, or team leadership role; public accounting (Manager level) or outsourced accounting leadership experience strongly preferred • Deep working knowledge of GAAP with direct experience navigating startup-specific accounting complexity: SAFEs, convertible instruments, ASC 606, equity compensation, and more • Demonstrated ability to manage a team and a client portfolio simultaneously without sacrificing quality on either • Strong coaching and feedback skills — you have developed junior accounting professionals before and take that responsibility seriously • Excellent written and verbal communication skills; executive presence in client-facing situations • Proficiency in QuickBooks Online; experience with NetSuite, Sage Intacct, or similar platforms preferred • Experience working in a remote professional services environment is strongly preferred COMPREHENSIVE PERKS AND BENEFITS: Health & Wellness: Competitive Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage. 100% of the employee's health insurance premium is covered by the company. Financial Security: Company-paid Short-Term and Long-Term Disability insurance. Work/Life Balance To Include: Generous Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO), 11 Paid Company Holidays, and comprehensive Paid Parental Leave. Remote Work Setup: Fully remote position with company-provided technology equipment and a $250 technology stipend to support your ideal home office setup. 401k: With a company match Graphite Financial is a growing boutique finance, accounting, tax, and strategy firm () built to help startup and high-growth companies scale efficiently and sustainably. Graphite Financial is redefining the “finance department” for early-stage companies and VC-backed startups. We deliver high-caliber accounting and finance leadership and support to entrepreneurs and management teams building scalable, high-growth companies. Our clients are actively managing cash burn, measuring performance, reporting to investors, making capital allocation decisions, and preparing for fundraising. All of that takes expertise and time that founders don’t have and can’t afford to hire for. Graphite bridges the gap with flexible, fixed-fee support packages that provide fractional leadership and operational support from CFOs, Controllers, FP&A Managers, and Tax leaders.