Company Description
Zephyr Advisory Group, LLC is a management consulting firm established in 2019 with a national footprint. Based in Denver, CO, our firm supports the Offices of the CFO / Financial Executives, Controllership, and Investor Relations of both public and private companies through project-based engagements. We offer services in accordance with the AICPA’s Statement on Standards for Consulting Services framework and intentionally do not offer audit or tax services unlike the Big 4 public accounting firms.
For private companies, we specialize in meeting the unique needs of Alternative Investment firms in subsectors such as Private Equity/Credit, Venture Capital, and Commercial Real Estate. Within this sector sleeve services can include, Lender Compliance, Capital Structure Analysis, and Financial Accounting. With a focus on institutional-class service, we provide sophisticated investor reporting and analysis to the institutional and individual investor communities.
Broadly speaking, we also serve SMB clients and their services-focused businesses within Health Care, Technology, and professional/financial services. Within technology, we focus on Fintech, Crypto, SaaS, and all things web3.
For public companies, we offer broad experience across the 11 S&P 500 sectors, serving CFOs/CXOs and corporate finance & accounting executives. Our project experience includes private equity mgmt co & owners along with their portfolio of operating assets & companies. We also have diverse industry experience across consulting engagements & full-time roles including FP&A, Corporate Accounting with a global SRO & SEC accelerated filers, and Strategic Finance & Treasury.
Client Service is Our Top Priority
Mutual compatibility is critical in achieving a successful client service experience. By ensuring both the client and our team are fully committed, aligned, and excited about each unique strategic plan, we can navigate a detailed multi-year roadmap with confidence. We have to know where the client needs to go in the proverbial end and that varies greatly with each situation and business.
We strategically select clients based on mutual fit across many attributes. This includes ‘culture’ of course, but equally important is recognition of an alignment in aspirations of multiple expansion and establishing shared or synergistic and self-sufficient revenue streams.
A Tale of Two Lifecycle Stages: Scale & Exit
We typically bifurcate client engagement plans into two categories of scale and exit. Scale is obviously focused on growth objectives shared by many client situations across every company lifecycle stage excluding exit. ‘Exit’ tends to be very transaction or event driven but can vary greatly in the timeline in which a plan may be executed. An exit strategy and plan may also not be mutually exclusive of ‘scale’ if a client wishes to achieve a certain valuation or other criteria prior to a sale or other transaction.
Firm Culture & Philosophy: People & Strategic Partners
We pride ourselves in sharing a culture and philosophy of ‘people first’ which we define by offering the most competitive compensation & benefits packages. To remain remotely competitive in garnering attention from the right talent, we rely on leveraging carta.com’s proprietary data from their Carta Total Compensation SaaS platform product. This equity administration platform is primarily suited for VC focused businesses.
By using these national benchmarks for wages and equity compensation, we can confidently substantiate our level of competitiveness in what we offer. Physically headquartered in Denver, CO, we are always pleased to travel or remotely engage as needed. Our aspirations have critical dependence on key target markets where we have 3rd party partnerships, vendors, and employees located in other key U.S. cities that include San Francisco, New York, Miami, and Atlanta.
Role Description
This is a part-time remote role for an Analyst at Zephyr Advisory Group. The Analyst will be responsible for supporting the Offices of the CFO / Financial Executives, Controllership, and Investor Relations through project-based engagements. The Analyst's day-to-day tasks will include (certainly not limited to) financial analysis, budgeting, forecasting, financial modeling, process improvement, and reporting. As a remote role, the Analyst will have the flexibility to work from any location.
Qualifications
- Financial analysis, budgeting, and forecasting skills
- Experience in financial modeling and analysis is required; however, a ‘nice to have’ may include quality of earnings assessments, Section 409(A) Valuations, 3-statement, individual statement of CF prep, 13-week CF, DCF/EBITDA, ARIMA Stats & Stochastics a plus $$, also not a requirement and can be trained)
- Business Valuation firm experience and/or related credential/certification is a plus
- Knowledge of corporate accounting (mainly Fin Stmt. iterations) and process improvement through technology vendor strategy
- Strong analytical, critical thinking, and basic problem-solving skills beyond deductive reasoning
- Excellent attention to detail and responsive to communications
- Advanced knowledge in Microsoft Excel and other financial modeling or dashboarding tools - ‘advanced’ could include: 1) self-taught VBA macro workarounds when existing formulas wont do it, 2) latest Excel dynamic formula usage including nesting concepts, 3) Excel Add-In integration to API data connections, queries, process flow automation, etc., 4) best practices when it comes to spreadsheet calculations, large datasets impact on resource utilization, data validation, spreadsheet error checking automation, etc.
- Python + Excel is beautiful too and less 2010s, I know!
- Quant. Finance & Econometrics w/ Python knowledge applied to data analytics or financial modeling libraries, leveraging statistically driven analysis of both quantitative and qualitative datasets is not required but a HUGE plus
- Ability to work independently and remotely with reliable responsiveness and min. gigabit internet connection speed
- Strong communication and Power Point deck creation and presentation skills
- Experience in the financial services industry (IB, PWM, Asset Mgmt.) is a plus, though transaction advisory or financial consulting firm internship experience will suffice. Explicitly excludes audit & tax internships
- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, or related quantitative field (excluding liberal arts economics majors with no relevant experience)
- Has insatiable ambition to develop finance, accounting, a tangential web3 relevant skill set, and a plan to become a Charted Financial Analyst (CFA) within 3 years if not already obtained or a CFA Institute candidate
- Is open to nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plans and multi-year equity incentive compensation plans
FYI - Any typos are due to posting this from an iPad touch keyboard! I’m a grammar and punctuation perfectionist as a heads up.
Interviews - Broad Strokes for now
Proprietary Interview process details will be fully disclosed upon electronic NDA execution. Expect personality or fit interview followed by a technical case study consisting of a live interactive financial modeling walk-through.
A separate submission of other hypothetical client deliverables will be due within a week or so. No restrictions on internet or data usage including A.I. Demonstrating ability to reduce prep time with seriously ANY software including any gen A.I. or web3 software tools.
This is probably a leg up just by giving it a shot. I understand it’s still early in the grand scheme. Even if a small portion of the prep was aided, showing a legitimate intellectual curiosity to learn and develop is all I hope to see in a candidate’s unique version of it.
If employer resources are used that’s fine with me as long as you cite referenced SaaS platforms or subscription sourced material (e.g., Bloomberg Terminal or FactSet access, etc.). Financial Model Templates are fair game and encouraged if utilizing BQL, for example. Model fundamentals will have been evaluated in the first interactive portion of the case study.
Test Scores (completely optional, but encouraged)
As I update this post, now from a tiny iPhone, I have seen an unexpected number of applicants already at this hour. If you have already submitted your application, please feel free to send your exam details via email to admin@zephyradv.com.
Please simply include the name of the exam (e.g., SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, etc.) and the total/composite score along with the raw and percentile figures. Also include the breakdown between quant and verbal, critical thinking, writing, etc.
This isn’t a university admissions style of evaluating candidates. It is more so that I can understand inherent baseline strengths as it may relate to assignment of project and client work. Just trying to set us all up for success as much as possible!