Groma is blending real estate and technology to unlock a new real estate asset class while making it easier for everyone, from institutional investors to the residents in our buildings, to participate in ownership. Our property technology platform uses AI to bring new efficiencies to the small unit count multifamily sector, enabling us to efficiently acquire, upgrade, and operate these 2-20 unit multifamily buildings and bring institutional performance to this massive but historically overlooked sector. Our investor technology platform makes owning these assets accessible to a broad array of investors, with bespoke vehicles available to institutional and family office investors and our flagship vehicle, the blockchain-powered GromaREIT, available to everyone, with a special focus on enabling ownership for the residents in our buildings. Visit www.groma.com to learn more about us.
About the Role
We are seeking a VP of Finance to join our team to scale up our financial reporting, accounting, audit, and banking efforts. We have a strong team in place and are in need of an experienced leader with at least 8-10 years of experience in the real estate industry specifically, to bring our finance/accounting organization to the next level of operational excellence. Groma operates several funds, including our flagship vehicle, the GromaREIT, each with differing aspects of complexity. Our core business involves owning and operating real estate, with all the volume challenges that come from that high-touch industry. And finally, we are a venture-backed tech startup with audit requirement needs for our investors. The ideal candidate will bring a mix of hands-on experience and work ethic, with executive leadership and management skills to enable our organization to grow and thrive. The position will report to our President, Seth Priebatsch. Below is a list of attributes and responsibilities:
Job Responsibilities
- Manage the Finance department to ensure processes are designed and implemented correctly across all teams within the department
- Lead Accounting team in building efficient systems that ensure accurate and timely closes for our properties, funds, and corporate entities
- Manage all components of insurance, including vendor relationships, risk policies, and overall liability posture, while considering the scalability of coverage costs as our property and operating businesses grow
- Oversee the preparation and analysis of financial statements, ensuring accuracy and compliance with GAAP principles to facilitate timely completion of audits
- Oversee the Fund Administration team to ensure that all funds are reporting appropriately to their investors and meeting the relevant compliance tests and requirements
- Directly manage our banking relationships, ensuring that bank reporting occurs as required and that we maintain strong relationships with lending partners
- Develop new strategic relationships with banking partners to enable us to finance our business needs, primarily real estate-backed loans, effectively
- Partner with the Investor Relations department by preparing reports to support investor presentations and by joining occasional key institutional and investor meetings to build confidence in our financial infrastructure
Collaborative and solutions-oriented mindset
- Lead the Finance department, ensuring excellence in financial practices and integrity
- Comfortable communicating operational workflow decisions with cross-functional team members and open to thoughtful feedback
- Collaborate with the Executive Team to develop and implement effective financial strategies
- Work closely with stakeholders and engineering partners to implement technical solutions to help the finance department as a whole scale
- Think creatively, be imaginative, and brainstorm new projects and ideas.
- Eagerness to help contribute to and build upon the existing company culture.
Curious about the industry
- Curious to learn how the real estate market and blockchain technology intersect, understanding business requirements and constraints.
Flexible in a growing environment
- Comfortable working on a broad set of projects and in an environment with frequent change.
- Experience within high-growth startups is a plus but not a requirement. (Willingness to exist within a high-growth startup environment, with the pros and cons that brings, is a requirement!)
Qualifications
- BA or MBA in Finance or Accounting required, other relevant advanced degree and/or certification, such as a CFA or CPA highly preferred
- 8+ years of progressive experience in financial management roles within the real estate investment sector.
- Proven experience in operational accounting and overseeing real estate funds, including REITs, Opportunity Zones, and closed-end funds
- Extensive knowledge of fund administration and reporting
- Extensive understanding of GAAP standards and their application in financial reporting to ensure compliance and timely completion of audits
- Demonstrated ability in managing tax, regulatory, and SEC compliance
- Strong leadership skills with a track record of mentoring and developing teams within an organization
- Effective communicator who can convey financial information and strategy across all levels of the organization
- Exceptional analytical, strategic, and problem-solving skills
Culture Overview
At Groma, we’re looking to build something big and are on a very fast growth trajectory. While a healthy work-life balance is important to our team, we want to be upfront that there may be times when we expect commitments outside of the standard 9-5. We strive to respect individuals and their needs, while also acknowledging the reality that we have a small team that is trying to accomplish some very ambitious goals in a short period of time.
We are also focused on maintaining our dynamic in-office culture at Groma’s headquarters in beautiful downtown Boston, Massachusetts. We believe that in-person collaboration and spontaneous interpersonal interaction is critical to the company’s success at this stage. Also, our office is great. We own the whole building and have made it very much our own space. We’ve got a gym, locker rooms, a game room, a rooftop garden, and all the normal stuff to make an office an effective and fun place to be. We understand that everyone will need to work from home or the road occasionally, but want to be transparent with this expectation.
We have an ever-evolving list of values and conventions that guide how we operate as a company, but here’s a high-level overview of how we think about doing what we do:
- We approach our work with pragmatic idealism that enables us to focus on our desire to make the world a better place in ways big and small while also being open to intelligent compromises that accelerate us on our path to serve our broader societal goals.
- Our whole team believes strongly that the challenges we are solving require effective teams, not individual heroes.
- We have complex conversations well. We sit at the intersection of housing and blockchain policy, both nuanced topics with real-world impacts. We pride ourselves on being thoughtful, seeking the best solutions to real-world challenges, and implementing them effectively in the real world.
Benefits & Perks
- Competitive salary for the Boston area
- Early-stage equity in a quickly growing startup
- 5% 401k match
- 100% employer-paid premiums for high-quality health, dental, and vision insurance plans
- Fully covered commuter passes for bus, subway, boat, or commuter rail
- Unlimited PTO
- 13 official company holidays
- One floating holiday: We recognize that there are lots of holidays that are meaningful to different people in different ways, and we want to celebrate that by enabling team members to have the time/space to commemorate those days however is appropriate and using it as an opportunity - if they’d like to - to share the meaning of that day with the broader team
- Optional pet insurance for cats, dogs, lizards, frogs, and waterfowl
- A beautiful office in downtown Boston with a gym, locker rooms, game room, rooftop garden, and several catered lunches a week
