Strategic Analyst- Finance

About Bright Money

Bright Money is a Consumer FinTech for middle-income consumers. It brings together SaaS products to help consumers build credit, manage their debt, and get access to suitable loans and credit cards. These are the major financial needs of middle-income consumers living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Bright is a profitable, India-built, U.S.-market Consumer FinTech, with revenue trajectory to $100M in the coming 12 months. The business model combines subscription revenue with financial service marketplace revenues for loans, credit cards, and credit-building tools.

Bright has launched an AI money assistant and AI agentic UX flows for access to credit. It will be the first AI-driven Consumer FinTech for middle-income consumers.

The Bright product suite has potential for global markets beyond the US. The market size is 100M global middle-income consumers, with a revenue pool opportunity of $15B.

Bright is backed by 3 top global venture capital firms, and leading tech angel investors in the USA, Europe, and Asia.

Bright was founded in 2019 by a founding team from McKinseys Banking Practice (Petko Plachkov and Avi Patchava) and InMobi Data Scientists (Varun Modi and Avi Patchava). The core team is ex-InMobi Engineering and Data Sciences, recently joined by senior leaders from McKinsey.

Bright is a data-driven, fast-paced execution culture that will build a Global Consumer FinTech, all functions operating from India.

What is the team and role about?

Strategic Financial Analyst with exceptional financial modeling and structured problem-solving capabilities. This role operates at the intersection of strategy, finance, and execution, partnering closely with senior leadership to support high-impact decisions through rigorous analysis and clear, executive-ready insights.

What will you do?

Strategic & Financial Analysis

• Build and own advanced financial models including:
• 3-statement financial models
• Unit economics & cohort models
• Scenario, sensitivity, and stress testing models
• Evaluate strategic initiatives such as new product launches, pricing changes, growth investments, and cost optimization
• Track cost structure, margins, and unit economics to identify risks, performance gaps, and value-creation opportunities
• Translate complex analyses into clear recommendations and decision frameworks for leadership

Business Problem Solving

• Structure ambiguous business problems using MECE frameworks and hypothesis-driven thinking
• Conduct deep-dive analyses to identify root causes and value-creation levers
• Answer not just what happened, but why it happened, and what should be done

Executive Communication & Storytelling

• Create decks with crisp narratives and data-backed insights for CEO meetings
• Present findings with a strong so-what orientation
• Partner with leadership to support board meetings, investor discussions, and strategic reviews

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Product, Growth, Risk, Operations, Data, and Finance teams
• Ensure financial implications are embedded into product and business decisions
• Act as a thought partner to functional leaders on strategic trade-offs

Planning & Decision Support

• Own financial planning for a defined business area, including annual planning, quarterly re-forecasting, and variance analysis
• Support long-range planning, annual operating plans, and ad-hoc strategic analyses
• Evaluate ROI of AI initiatives, automation efforts, and platform investments
• Assist with fundraising, investor reporting, and capital allocation decisions

Ideal candidate profile looks like?

Experience & Background:

• 58 years of experience in strategic finance, corporate strategy, business analytics, consulting, or high-growth startup environments
• Deep, hands-on expertise in financial modeling, including 3-statement models, unit economics and cohort analysis, and scenario, sensitivity, and downside-risk analysis
• Advanced proficiency in Excel / Google Sheets, with a track record of building assumption-driven, transparent, and auditable models that leadership relies on for decision-making
• Strong ability to structure and solve complex, ambiguous business problems using hypothesis-driven and data-backed approaches
• Proven capability to translate analysis into clear strategic insights, trade-offs, and recommendations
• Regular experience supporting senior leadership and board-level decision-making, including ownership of executive-ready materials
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence outcomes through clear, concise storytelling
• Demonstrated ownership of end-to-end analytical workstreams, from problem definition to recommendation and execution support
• Strong business judgment with attention to detail, balancing speed, accuracy, and impact
• Comfortable operating in fast-paced, high-ambiguity environments and partnering cross-functionally to drive outcomes
• Experience mentoring or guiding junior analysts is a strong plus

Mindset & Operating DNA:

• Structured, first-principles thinker who brings clarity to ambiguous problems and drives hypothesis-led analysis
• Strong owners mindset with end-to-end accountability for insights, recommendations, and outcomes
• Decision-oriented and impact-focused, prioritizing the so-what over analysis for its own sake
• High bar for rigor, execution, and quality, especially for leadership- and board-level outputs

Non-Fit Profiles:

• Prefer well-defined, execution-only work and struggle with ambiguity or open-ended problem-solving
• Are primarily focused on reporting or routine FP&A, with limited strategic or modeling depth
• Avoid ownership or accountability for driving decisions and outcomes
• Are uncomfortable challenging perspectives with data or engaging senior stakeholders

Preferred Skills:

• Experience in financial services, FinTech, or data-driven businesses
• Exposure to long-range planning, investment evaluation, or capital allocation
• Working knowledge of SQL, Python, or BI tools for analysis
• Prior experience supporting fundraising, investor reporting, or strategic planning exercises

What Bright Offers?

• A profitable sub-unicorn with U.S. market scale - liquidity potential at $13B valuations.
• Wealth creation: Equity at an inflection stage of scale.
• A data-driven, high-cadence culture that combines consulting rigor with FinTech speed.
• Working Mode: 5 days from the Bangalore office in a week