- Location
- McLean, Virginia
- Department
- Finance
- Seniority
- Director
- Source
- Greenhouse
Description
Here at Appian, our values of Intensity and Excellence define who we are. We set high standards and live up to them, ensuring that everything we do is done with care and quality. We approach every challenge with ambition and commitment, holding ourselves and each other accountable to achieve the best results. When you join Appian, you’ll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together.
Are you ready to accelerate Appian’s global cash flow operations? We are looking for a collections leader who eliminates friction, modernizes workflows, and transforms billing and collections bottlenecks into automated cash velocity.
ABOUT THE TEAM
The Finance team at Appian is the engine that fuels global growth and safeguards fiscal health. As leaders in the AI-Powered Process Automation market, finance professionals design and maintain scalable financial frameworks that match the speed of technological innovation. This team ensures seamless business execution, data integrity, and cross-functional alignment to maximize global revenue generation. The Director of Billing & Collections moves beyond traditional debt recovery to serve as a strategic operational advisor to executive leadership, leveraging data forensics to eliminate revenue leakage, resolve upstream billing friction, and compress the Order-to-Cash lifecycle.
THE OPPORTUNITY
As Appian continues to expand its leadership in Enterprise-Grade Orchestration, optimizing working capital and accelerating cash conversion are more critical than ever. This role moves far beyond traditional debt recovery—you will serve as a strategic operational advisor to executive leadership, leveraging data forensics to eliminate revenue leakage, resolve upstream billing friction, and compress the Order-to-Cash lifecycle. If you are ready to architect scalable recovery frameworks, modernize global credit strategies, and lead high-impact teams in a hyper-growth SaaS environment, this is your next career step.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Executive Financial Analytics & Forecasting: Serve as the financial authority on accounts receivable performance; monitor, analyze, and report on core liquidity metrics including Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), Aging Buckets, and Bad Debt Reserves. Deliver monthly executive cash forecasts, AR exposure analyses, and data-driven working capital insights to senior finance leadership.
- End-to-End Operational Ownership: Own and optimize the global billing, collections, and accounts receivable operations across Appian’s enterprise portfolio, driving continuous process improvements to compress the Order-to-Cash (O2C) cycle, and accelerate cash collection.
- Root-Cause Billing Friction Elimination: Partner directly with upstream operational teams to diagnose recurring invoice discrepancies, dispute trends, and customer onboarding friction—turning systemic billing issues into automated, repeatable workflows that prevent delinquency before it occurs.
- Systems Architecture & Automation: Champion the continuous modernization of our finance systems; maximize the operational capabilities of NetSuite, Salesforce, and HighRadius to establish intelligent dunning cadences, automated dispute routing, and seamless ledger reconciliation.
- Cross-Functional Intervention & Alignment: Collaborate closely with Sales, Customer Success, Legal, and Deal Desk leadership to de-escalate complex enterprise commercial disputes, unblock stalled enterprise invoices, and structure win-win payment pathways that secure critical cash flow while preserving long-term client relationships.
- Global Credit Policy & Risk Governance: Establish, maintain, and enforce standardized global credit assessment, collections, and write-off policies. Ensure strict operational compliance with internal controls (SOX), statutory tax requirements, and international trade/financial regulations across all global operating entities.
- People Leadership & Talent Development: Lead, mentor, and scale a high-performing team of global billing and collection specialists (currently a team of five). Cultivate a culture of operational excellence, data forensics, and customer-centric negotiation through tailored coaching, clear KPI frameworks, and defined career growth pathways.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Degree: Bachelor’s Degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a closely related business field.
- Experience: Minimum of 10+ years of progressive corporate finance experience, with a demonstrated focus on leading enterprise billing, collections, and accounts receivable operations.
- ERP & Systems Mastery: Hands-on experience leveraging enterprise ERP platforms—with specialized proficiency in NetSuite—along with modern automated collections/AR platforms, billing engines, and CRM integrations (e.g., Salesforce).
- Data Governance: Proven track record of managing data integrity and compliance protocols within an enterprise environment.
- Proven People Leadership: 5+ years of direct experience building, mentoring, and leading high-performing credit and collections teams in a high-volume B2B or enterprise SaaS environment.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- We value experience with enterprise platforms as these skills translate well into our Enterprise-Grade Orchestration environment.
- Enterprise B2B / SaaS Recurring Revenue: Deep knowledge of recurring revenue metrics, multi-year enterprise software contracts, and consumption-based/hybrid billing.
- Vendor & Agency Management: Experience vetting, onboarding, and supervising third-party collection agencies, external legal counsel, and credit bureau relationships while managing vendor SLAs and recovery ROI.
- Modern A/R Automation Software: Familiarity with modern A/R automation and digital dunning platforms like HighRadius or Billtrust.
The base salary range represents a good faith and reasonable estimate of the range at the time of posting. Actual compensation will be dependent on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant work experience, qualifications, internal peer equity, and market and business conditions that exist when extending an offer. A discretionary bonus may be awarded in recognition of individual and company performance.
In addition, Appian provides generous benefits offerings that include a 401(k) plan with company match, flexible time off, paid parental leave, medical, dental, and vision plans, life insurance, disability insurance, wellness programs, flexible spending accounts, health savings account contributions, an employee referral bonus program, and learning and development resources. Certain positions may be eligible for equity awards.
Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation, commission, bonus, or benefit plans.
Tools and Resources
- Training and Development: During onboarding, we focus on equipping new hires with the skills and knowledge for success through department-specific training. Continuous learning is a central focus at Appian, with dedicated mentorship and the First-Friend program being widely utilized resources for new hires.
- Growth Opportunities: Appian provides a diverse array of growth and development opportunities, including our leadership program tailored for new and aspiring managers, a comprehensive library of specialized department training through Appian University, skills based training, and tuition reimbursement for those aiming to advance their education. This commitment ensures that employees have access to a holistic range of development opportunities.
- Community: We’ll immerse you into our community rooted in respect starting on day one. Appian fosters inclusivity through our 8 employee-led affinity groups. These groups help employees build stronger internal and external networks by planning social, educational, and outreach activities to connect with Appianites and larger initiatives throughout the company.
Benefits
Appian offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your health, wellbeing, and financial future. Benefits may include health coverage, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with free mental health support, life and disability insurance, an Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), a retirement/pension plan, wellness dollars, tuition reimbursement, family-forming benefits and more. Benefits vary by country—please ask your Talent Acquisition contact for details specific to the location you are applying to.
About Appian
Appian provides AI automation for the most important business processes at the world’s largest organizations. Our platform is known for its unique power, reliability, and scale. We’ve been automating processes for more than 25 years and have proven expertise in enterprise operations. For more information, visit appian.com.
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Appian is an equal opportunity employer that strives to attract and retain the best talent. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
Appian provides reasonable accommodations to applicants in accordance with all applicable laws. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at [email protected]. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.