Strategic Operations & Finance Manager

Posted:
9/30/2024, 2:49:45 AM

Location(s):
New York, United States ⋅ New York, New York, United States

Experience Level(s):
Mid Level ⋅ Senior

Field(s):
Business & Strategy ⋅ Finance & Banking ⋅ Operations & Logistics

About Safari AI
The Company's vision is to Automate Action of the leading companies in the physical economy, from Entertainment, QSR's, Retail and beyond. It's using computer vision AI to Measure, Alert and provide AI-generated Recommendations at the operations of leading companies such as Merlin/Legoland, Universal Orlando, 7-11, Tanger Outlets, Manhattan Mini Storage, Charlotte Hornets, Calgary Flames, and more. In the near future, Safari AI will use this data and to suggest how its clients can optimize its SOPs to generate more revenue and create more valuable guest and staff experiences.
 
Safari AI is seed-funded by leading venture capital investors and expects to raise its Series A in 2025.
 
Leadership & Culture
Safari AI is co-founded by Ali Vahabzadeh & Kaiwen Yuan, two leaders who have meaningful exits under their belts and have managed large, high-performing Go To Market and Engineering teams. The company is headquartered in NYC where the GTM team is based and works from the office five days a week, while Engineering is distributed between North America and Brazil. 
 
About You And How You Succeed At Safari AI
You're excited about building a product and creating a market that hasn't been done before. You have a strong bias toward action when you are stuck but are not afraid to ask for help when you need to. You're high agency, and eager to test new ways of doing things, taking advantage of the freedom and culture an early stage startup can afford you. You're eager to lead the  company's engagement with category leaders in a variety of industries, solving some of their biggest challenges.

About the Role
We have an exciting opportunity for a hands-on operations and finance pro to report directly to Safari AI's CEO. This is an essential role for the company and one where you’ll be able to drive mission-critical day-to-day business operations and support on the company’s most pressing strategic initiatives to help scale the business.

 
The CEO is based in New York City and come to the office every day along with other teammates on the GTM team. This role would be expected to work from the Safari AI's midtown Manhattan office at least 4x/week.

What you will be working on Weekly Basis

  • Lead and support essential business operations functions, including but not limited to Finance, Vendor Management, People Ops, and other Business Operations functions
  • Set the company up for scale as it approaches a multi-million dollar ARR level
  • Manage the company model and budget
  • Partner with internal stakeholders and help drive customer relations as renewal and expansion opportunities present itself
     
  • Contribute to Technical Operations, specifically working with the company's outsourced partners to label and QA client data
  • Lead the response to RFIs and RFPs where the company believes it has a high chance of winning
  • Help manage key vendor relationships and search for redundancies and savings opportunities as we outgrow existing vendors
  • Assist in future fundraising efforts

Requirement for the Role

  • Undergraduate degree from a top 30 university
  • 3+ years of experience in Finance, Management Consulting, or similar Operations / Finance / Strategy leadership position at a early- or mid-stage startup, preferably in Enterprise SaaS
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
  • Detail-oriented with strong organizational and administrative skills
  • Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
  • Bias for action with strong ability to multitask
  • Available to travel on an occasional but not frequent basis

Why bet on Computer Vision and Safari AI? 
1. Huge opportunity hiding in plain sight: leveraging already-installed cameras to automate and real-time action on operational data
2. Large chasm between customer knowledge and market availability, i.e. customers don't know what is available in the market...yet.
3. No clear industry leader in computer vision; everyone is small and unbranded (i.e. no Amazon or Google in the room to compete with)
4. Very modular, allowing Safari AI and its customers to invent whole new use cases on a regular basis
5. Developed the tech and data pipelines over three years and invested several million dollars and is now ready to scale
6. Already the market leader in enterprise CV by working with industry leaders with billions in revenue

Safari AI

Website: https://getsafari.ai/

Headquarter Location: New York, New York, United States

Employee Count: 11-50

Year Founded: 2018

IPO Status: Private

Last Funding Type: Seed

Industries: Artificial Intelligence (AI) ⋅ Computer Vision ⋅ Information Technology ⋅ Infrastructure ⋅ Internet ⋅ SaaS ⋅ Software