Head of Finance

About Us‍

Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward an abundant future for all. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to dramatically accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive scientific progress. We are searching for visionary leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving transformative change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming here.Astera is in a unique position to contribute to the course of rapid scientific and technological innovation, relative to other foundations, owing to a combination of:

• A $2.5B endowment, which we actually intend to use rather than growing and maintaining in perpetuity.
• A small, agile team: We are staffed much more leanly than other foundations, and aim to keep bureaucracy as minimal as possible. It's more accurate to think of us as a startup than a traditional foundation.
• High risk tolerance: We take an experimental approach to our programming that means we expect projects to fail with some frequency.
• Disinterest in consensus: We want to add value specifically by supporting projects, programs, and people that other organizations can't or won't support.

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Position Summary

We are looking for a mission and culturally-aligned Fractional Finance Specialist to develop and implement the financial foundation needed to support Astera’s ambitious impact goals. This person will partner closely with our investment and operations leadership as well as external partners to deliver timely and accurate financial reporting and oversee our balance sheet. They will set up the systems necessary to ensure informed decision-making, accountability, and an understanding of any compliance risks. We expect to partner with someone for ~10-20 hours per week.This role is ideal for a finance leader who thrives in dynamic, entrepreneurial environments and is energized by the opportunity to help shape the financial foundation of a high-impact, experimental organization. We are seeking a candidate who is motivated by the challenge of building financial systems that can scale with Astera’s vision for transformative impact.

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Key Responsibilities

• Lead Financial Reporting and Compliance: Oversee the preparation of accurate, timely financial statements and ensure successful completion of annual audits by effectively managing relationships with accounting, audit, and tax partners.
• Oversee the balance sheet: Collaborate with internal and external partners to monitor and report on Astera’s investment portfolio, supporting informed decision-making and risk management.
• Build and Optimize Financial Systems: Design, implement, and maintain robust systems for tracking software licenses, program budgets, ongoing financial commitments, vendor management, and payments—ensuring operational efficiency and transparency as the organization grows.
• Manage Vendors and Stakeholders: Serve as the primary point of contact for financial vendors, fostering productive partnerships and holding partners accountable to Astera’s standards of excellence.
• Continuously Improve: Proactively identify opportunities to streamline processes, strengthen internal controls, and enhance financial visibility to support Astera’s mission and evolving needs.
  

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Qualifications

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To work with us, you must:

• Understand that trying to build an extraordinary organization requires tenacity, ownership, and agency from every member of the team. This means: You love the challenge of coming up with surprising solutions to problems we don’t even know we have and see options where others only see constraints.
• Embody the flexibility needed to thrive in a startup-like environment. This means: You don’t expect to maintain strong boundaries around what “isn’t your job,” and recognize that the role you’re being hired for might evolve significantly over the course of 6-12 months.
• Understand and be entirely dedicated to leveraging the incredible opportunity we have to meaningfully steer the future of science and technology. This means: You’re always looking beyond solving the object-level problem to figure out if there’s a deeper or more systemic shift we can initiate – looking to cure the disease rather than treat the symptoms.
• Believe you are capable of creating the best vehicle in the world for unleashing the capacity of extraordinary individuals to build public goods for science and technology, and that it is your responsibility to do so. This means: Your standards for excellence are exceedingly high and internally dictated; you don’t level-set by reference to what other foundations are doing. You find yourself asking, “can we do this 10x better than anyone else?”
• Recognize the compounding effect that a culture of respectful but direct feedback has on organizational capacity over time, and be excited to contribute to that culture via relationships and interactions with people who are above, below, or next to you in an org chart. This means: You habitually narrate your internal reactions as an overlay on object-level conversations, rather than leaving them in the background; you notice and externalize “the question behind the question.”
• Operate with the highest levels of integrity, judgment, and stewardship. This means, among other things: You treat grantees and investees in ways that respect the value of their time, energy, and contributions.
• Embrace experimentation as the primary driver of progress, with a bias to action instead of deliberation. This means: You have the courage to launch and iterate on thoughtfully designed experiments rather than obsessing over perfect plans that never launch.
  

In addition, the following are helpful:

• Deep expertise in financial management, reporting, and compliance
• Comfort in the systems we use: Ramp, Quickbooks, Google Suite
• An ideal candidate profile likely has a combination of experience spanning a top accounting firm, plus accounting/finance for investment funds and/or startups
  

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Location

This role is based at our Emeryville office a minimum of two days per week. While your time on-site may be spent on projects beyond Astera, regular in-person presence is essential for meaningful collaboration and to fully immerse yourself in our culture and evolving priorities.

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How to Apply

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