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Assembly is seeking a Client Finance Associate Director to serve as a senior leader within Client Finance for North America, ensuring accurate reporting, strong financial controls, and compliant revenue recognition. This role is centered on strategic partnership, team leadership, risk management, and process excellence. As a trusted advisor to the Head of Finance and senior client leaders, you will provide insight into business performance, proactively identify risks and opportunities, and ensure the Client Finance organization is positioned for long-term success

Strategic Leadership & Partnership

• Act as the primary strategic partner to the Head of Finance for all client finance matters, providing visibility into financial performance, risks, and opportunities across the client portfolio.
• Serve as a senior financial advisor to account, commercial, and operational leaders, influencing decisions related to pricing, staffing models, contract structures, and margin optimization.
• Translate complex financial results into clear, actionable insights for executive and non-financial stakeholders.

Oversight of Core Finance Operations

• Provide executive oversight of month-end close, revenue recognition, and financial reporting, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and full compliance with GAAP, SOX, and internal controls.
• Ensure robust ownership and governance of WIP, STBB, AR, and billing cycles, with a focus on reducing aging balances, improving cash flow, and supporting Net Working Capital objectives.
• Oversee revenue forecasting and long-range planning in partnership with Client Finance Managers, ensuring forecasts are realistic, well-supported, and aligned with commercial expectations.
• Review and challenge key assumptions underlying forecasts, accruals, and estimates to ensure financial integrity.

Risk Management, Compliance & Audit

• Act as a compliance steward, ensuring no gaps across revenue recognition, client contracts, intercompany activity, and internal controls.
• Lead Client Finance preparation for internal audits, external audits, client audits, and tax support, ensuring documentation, controls, and responses meet required standards.
• Proactively identify financial, contractual, or operational risks and partner with leadership to mitigate them before they escalate.

Team Leadership & Talent Development

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Client Finance Managers and analysts, ensuring clear accountability, high performance, and consistent execution.
• Enable team members’ growth by providing mentorship, stretch opportunities, and exposure to higher-level strategic work.
• Establish best practices, standard operating procedures, and clear role definitions to ensure scalability and resilience of the Client Finance function.
• Foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Process Improvement & Systems Enablement

• Drive process optimization, automation, and system enhancements across client finance workflows, reducing manual effort and increasing accuracy and insight.
• Partner with Accounting, FP&A, and Commercial Finance to improve data flow between systems (e.g., ERP, media systems, billing tools).
• Ensure client-level reporting and dashboards are consistent, reliable, and aligned with leadership and client expectations.

• 7–10+ years of progressive experience in finance or accounting, with significant experience in a media, advertising, or professional services environment.
• Proven experience leading or overseeing client finance, revenue recognition, forecasting, WIP/AR, and billing operations.
• Strong command of GAAP, revenue recognition principles, internal controls, and audit requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to operate at both a strategic and executional level, providing leadership without being embedded in daily transaction processing.
• Advanced proficiency in Excel and financial analysis, with the ability to review and challenge complex models and outputs (hands-on capability required, though not day-to-day).
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, with the credibility to influence senior leaders and client-facing teams.

Why Assembly?

• We care about your growth – we offer competitive salaries and annual compensation review
• We recognize and celebrate your success…all the time! Whether it’s through company meetups, employee recognition programs, or just a regular day, we make sure our people’s achievements are known and appreciated
• We’re truly a people-first organization. That’s why we offer a Flexible Time Off policy that puts you in control of your work-life balance, as well as market-leading primary and secondary caregiver and parental leave policies
• We have a hybrid in-office/remote working policy that focuses on bringing people together in-person when it’s needed most, i.e., team strategy brainstorms, learning & development opportunities, and company meetings
• We care about social and environmental Impact – we have dedicated Impact Champions who collaborate globally to make sure we’re leaving the world better than we found it
• We have an amazing group of Employee Resource Groups who form close knit communities and are committed to guiding the agency to become more inclusive, diverse, and representative of the world around us
• We’re part of Stagwell, the challenger network built to transform marketing. We’re nimble and digital-first, and we’re quickly growing to take on the biggest legacy hold cos

In addition to medical, dental and vision coverage, we offer a generous PTO plan, 401k program, comprehensive family planning benefits (including paid parental leave), and pre-tax commuter benefits. Benefits/perks may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Assembly and the location where you work.

Preferred but not required: 

 

• CPA, CMA, or equivalent professional certification.
• Prior experience in an agency or marketing services organization with exposure to media finance tools (e.g., Mediaocean, I/O systems, media reconciliation platforms).
• Experience leveraging Power BI, Tableau, or similar tools to deliver executive-level reporting and insights.
• Background in driving finance transformation, automation, or shared services models.

At Assembly, we believe every career is as unique as the individual and empower employees to reach their full potential in a winning culture motivated by a powerful purpose.

 

Assembly is an advocate for equal opportunity in the workplace. We are committed to ensuring equal opportunities regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, gender identity, status as a protected veteran, among other things, or status as a qualified individual with disability. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. EEO Employer M/F/Vet/Disabled.

In order to comply with equal pay and salary transparency laws in various locations, we believe the target range of base compensation in all locations within the United States for this role is $120-$140k USD. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and location.