Chief Financial Officer

Tags: finance
  • Added Date: Friday, 21 March 2025
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Description Position at Ashoka

Chief Financial Officer

Arlington, Virginia

The Opportunity:

We are looking for a CFO who sees beyond the numbersโ€”a strategic architect who understands how finance fuels innovation, scales impact, and drives sustainable global growth. This is not a traditional finance role. We need a leader who can navigate complexity, empower teams, and build financial systems that unlock bold ideas rather than restrict them.

If youโ€™ve built or grown an organization from early stages to large-scale impact, led dynamic teams, and believe in the power of networks, this is a rare opportunity to take on a high-impact global challenge. The CFO will collaborate with teams worldwide and serve as a thought partner to the CEO and the Ashoka Board.

What Youโ€™ll Do:

Shape the financial vision to support Ashokaโ€™s mission, ensuring sustainability without stifling innovation.Turn financial insights into actionโ€”develop tools like the Managerโ€™s Dashboard to help regional and program leaders make bold, data-driven decisions.Advise the CEO and senior leadership, bringing a financial lens to strategy, growth, and impact.Build a financial framework for scale, guiding Ashokaโ€™s growth strategy while ensuring agility, transparency, and accountability.Design and manage the annual and five-year financial roadmap, ensuring resources align with Ashokaโ€™s biggest opportunities.Champion a culture of financial empowerment, ensuring teams at all levels have the tools to think like investors in Ashokaโ€™s future.

What You Bring:

CPA required.Masterโ€™s degree in Finance or Accounting; MBA strongly preferred.Experience leading financial strategy in decentralized, global, innovation-driven, and mission-driven social sector organizations.Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to translate financial complexity into clear, compelling insights that drive action.A builderโ€™s mindsetโ€”someone who has started or led pattern-changing ventures and knows how to create financial systems that enable, rather than constrain, growth.Experience growing an organization from ~$50M to larger global scale.

๐Ÿ“š ๐——๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ ๐—›๐—ผ๐˜„ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—š๐—ฒ๐˜ ๐—ฎ ๐—๐—ผ๐—ฏ ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—จ๐—ก ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐Ÿฎ๐Ÿฌ๐Ÿฎ๐Ÿฏ! ๐ŸŒ๐Ÿค ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฑ ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ก๐—˜๐—ช ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ฟ๐˜‚๐—ถ๐˜๐—บ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐˜ ๐—š๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—จ๐—ก ๐Ÿฎ๐Ÿฌ๐Ÿฎ๐Ÿฏ ๐˜„๐—ถ๐˜๐—ต ๐˜๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜ ๐˜€๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ฒ๐˜€ ๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฟ ๐—จ๐—ก๐—›๐—–๐—ฅ, ๐—ช๐—™๐—ฃ, ๐—จ๐—ก๐—œ๐—–๐—˜๐—™, ๐—จ๐—ก๐——๐—ฆ๐—ฆ, ๐—จ๐—ก๐—™๐—ฃ๐—”, ๐—œ๐—ข๐—  ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ผ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€! ๐ŸŒ

โš ๏ธ ๐‚๐ก๐š๐ง๐ ๐ž ๐˜๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐‹๐ข๐Ÿ๐ž ๐๐จ๐ฐ: ๐๐จ๐ฐ๐ž๐ซ๐Ÿ๐ฎ๐ฅ ๐“๐ž๐œ๐ก๐ง๐ข๐ช๐ฎ๐ž๐ฌ ๐ก๐จ๐ฐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ ๐ž๐ญ ๐š ๐ฃ๐จ๐› ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐”๐ง๐ข๐ญ๐ž๐ ๐๐š๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐ฌ ๐๐Ž๐–!

Core Criteria:


Ashoka has a rigorous screening process for hiring staff at all career stages. All applicants for all positions must possess the following qualities along with the appropriate degree of experience:

Entrepreneurship quality: Compelled to take creative initiative and ownership (e.g. founding an organization or company, starting a movement, or re-shaping the work of an existing organization). Demonstrates relentless and realistic how-to-thinking and passion for seeing their ideas come to life.


Understanding and Belief in the Everyone a Changemaker: Understands and believes the Everyone a Changemaker vision at a gut level. To be able to innately โ€˜getโ€™ this, candidates should have a broad and inquisitive intellectual and a thinking pattern that connects the dots between historical trends and current social context.


Emotional and Social Intelligence: Ability to work efficiently and respectfully in teams, putting organizational/team goal first (personal glory second).


Ethical Fiber: Exceptionally strong ethical behavior. Is self-reflective and has strong empathy skills. Trustworthy.


Self-Definition: The person expects that changing the world in big ways and on a continental scale is what he/she will do in life.

What We Offer:

Performance based salary; benefits including flexible time offAccess to exclusive global convenings, fellows, and innovation labs.Professional development: Learn from some of the worldโ€™s most influential changemakers, funders, and policymakers.

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