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Job Title: Director of Finance and Controller

Company: Utopai Studios

Location: Hybrid - Mountain View, CA (preferred) or Los Angeles, CA

Employment Type: Full-Time

Reports to: COO

Level: Director, individual contributor to start, with a path to building and leading the finance team

Utopai Studios is an AI-native entertainment company producing long-form cinematic content through PAI, our proprietary orchestration platform. We are operating across the US, China, Korea and Germany. We are building the studio model for a generation of content that has not been possible before.

You will own the accuracy, integrity, and operational rigor of our books as we scale from founder-led toward institutional-grade financial infrastructure. This role suits someone energized by ambiguity, not someone who wants a steady-state close process to inherit.

You will build the close calendar, the reconciliation cadence, the accrual bridge, and the documentation trail. You will work directly with our COO, our outsourced accounting team, outside counsel, and executive leadership, and you will be the internal owner who is accountable for the numbers.

This is the seed of Utopai's finance organization, not a permanent solo seat. As the business scales, the person in this role has a clear path to building a team beneath them and growing into VP of Finance. We are hiring for the person who can grow into the org, not just the person who can do the work today.

• Own and maintain the company’s operating budget, project budgets, and rolling financial forecast, and reconcile actual results against QuickBooks Online each month.
• Design and enforce purchasing, contracting, expense reimbursement, payment approval, and spend-control processes across departments and legal entities.
• Partner with department and project leaders to develop budgets and monitor spending against approved plans
• Review significant spending commitments against approved budgets before contracts or purchase commitments are finalized
• Develop and maintain practical financial dashboards and management reports using QuickBooks Online and other available systems so leadership has timely visibility into cash, spending, budget performance, and runway.
• Own the monthly and quarterly close process in coordination with our outsourced accounting team, including reconciliations, accruals, supporting schedules, management review, and timely delivery of financial statements.

• Bring discipline to revenue classification across Utopai's various revenue streams
• Own the mechanics of milestone-based and usage-based revenue recognition for major contracts, including tracking deliverables and triggers so recognition is defensible
• Maintain clean separation between deferred and recognized revenue in all internal reporting
• Flag any revenue treatment that would change materially under GAAP accrual versus cash basis

• Own the accounting across our parent company and its subsidiaries, coordinating with local accounting partners in each country and consolidating into one clean set of group books
• Track and reconcile intercompany and related-party transactions with the documentation rigor an auditor or diligence team expects, including intercompany funding, cost allocations, and cash movements between entities
• Maintain consolidation and elimination entries so intercompany activity nets out correctly in group reporting
• Support cross-border coordination on payroll, contractor classification, and withholding across our US, German, Korean, and China-facing operations, escalating anything with legal or tax exposure to outside counsel

• Prepare a monthly management reporting package covering profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, burn rate, runway, receivables, payables, and budget variances
• Monitor obligations tied to notes, SAFEs, and shareholder loans, and flag upcoming cash calls with lead time
• Support fundraising-related financial diligence as it arises

• Build the accrual-basis bridge alongside the cash-basis books so we can produce GAAP-consistent figures on demand for investors or auditors
• Document accounting policies and judgment calls so institutional diligence has a clear paper trail
• Partner with outside counsel and external accounting on open technical questions

• 8+ years in accounting or controllership, including at least 3 in a startup or high-growth environment where you built process rather than inherited it
• Working fluency in both cash-basis and GAAP accrual accounting
• Comfort with related-party transaction accounting and the documentation discipline institutional investors expect
• Hands-on experience owning accounting across multiple legal entities in different countries, including intercompany reconciliation and consolidation
• Experience with revenue recognition under non-standard or milestone-based contracts (media, licensing, or services businesses are a plus, not a requirement)
• CPA or equivalent strongly preferred, not required if the experience is there
• The judgment and standing to elevate, to push back on leadership

• Hands-on QuickBooks Online experience; experience standing up or managing a QBO integration is a strong plus
• Entertainment, media, or IP-licensing accounting background
• Exposure to cap table platforms (Pulley) and fluency in SAFE mechanics
• Experience in a company that went through a cash-to-accrual or audit-readiness transition
• Film or TV production accounting experience, including production cash flow management