Chief Financial Officer

Chief Financial Officer

Purpose of the role

Atlas is a profitable multi-unit franchisee that the brand has identified as one of its growth platforms. It is recapitalizing with institutional equity for the first time, closing a 12-unit acquisition in the fourth quarter, re-amortizing its senior facility under an amendment, resolving legacy balance-sheet obligations, and preparing for the acquisitions that take it past 150 Jimmy John’s restaurants before an additional brand is added. The CFO owns all of that and everything the company’s finances touch while it happens: the lender amendment and covenant reporting, the equity closing and the investor relationship afterwards, the resolution of legacy obligations, the integration of acquired restaurants onto the Atlas chart of accounts, and the monthly package that the lender, the franchisor and the investor each receive from the same ledger. The first eighteen months are a capital-markets and integration job as much as a controllership. The right candidate has done both.

Responsibilities

Capital, lender and investor

• Own the senior-lender relationship: covenant certificates, reporting packages, the amendment through to signing, and the consents each acquisition requires.
• Prepare and defend the covenant calculations on the definition as written, including the agreed add-back schedule, and manage the transition from historical treatment.
• Run the equity process alongside the CEO and the capital-markets advisors: data room, management presentation, diligence responses, term-sheet negotiation on the preferred, closing mechanics including lender consents and KYC.
• Serve as the investor’s primary finance contact afterwards: board materials, the monthly package, the dividend and sweep mechanics, the buyback analysis when the window opens.
• Build and own the integrated financial model — three operating cases, quarterly covenant projection, sources and uses, investor returns — so that every party sees one set of numbers.

Reporting and controls

• Rebuild period close so that the pack ties to the ledger and the ledger ties to the bank: accrual completeness checks for vendor invoices, reconciliation of the franchisor sales feed to the general ledger each period, and a restatement log.
• Deliver the monthly reporting package to the lender, the franchisor and the investor from the ledger, within ten days of period close.
• Own multi-state sales tax compliance end to end: collection, remittance, and the reconciliation of collected tax to liability each period.
• Maintain the finance schema and the financial-analysis tooling in the company’s data platform, working with the CEO’s internal engineering, so that period packs, covenant tests and store-level analysis run from one source.

Acquisitions and operating finance

• Lead financial diligence and integration for acquired restaurants: chart-of-accounts mapping, as-mapped versus seller pro forma reconciliation, labor and food-cost normalization, 100-day plan tracking. Minnesota first; the next group on the same playbook.
• Underwrite the pipeline — Utah, the two 48-unit groups, organic development — on a common basis the lender and investor can read.
• Partner with operations on the committable program: third-party marketplace pricing, controllable promotions, facility cost, modifier attachment, the persistently negative stores. Report progress weekly against the bank-case plan.
• Own the budget at bank-case margins with the budget case alongside; run the weekly cash committee; manage the thirteen-week forecast and vendor payment ranking.

Leadership

• Lead the finance team and the outside advisors; set the standard that numbers are owned by the people who produce them.
• Be the second voice in the room with the lender, the franchisor and the investor — fluent in the plan, able to say what the CEO would say when the CEO is not there.
• Tell the CEO and the board the uncomfortable thing early.

What the candidate brings

Required

• Ten or more years of progressive finance leadership, with at least three as CFO, VP Finance or equivalent in a multi-unit restaurant, retail or franchise business.
• Direct experience of a senior-lender amendment or covenant reset as the borrower’s finance lead.
• Hands-on experience with a capital raise or recapitalization: data room, diligence, term-sheet negotiation, closing.
• Fluency in credit-agreement mechanics: EBITDA definitions and add-backs, fixed charge coverage, rent-adjusted leverage, mandatory prepayments, consents.
• Acquisition integration of restaurant groups onto a common chart of accounts.
• A record of fixing period close and reporting controls in a business that had problems with both.
• Multi-state sales and use tax compliance experience.
• SQL at minimum; experience working with a Supabase or Postgres-based reporting stack is a strong advantage.

Strongly preferred

• Franchisee experience in a national QSR system; familiarity with franchisor reporting feeds, royalty and ad-fund mechanics, and transfer processes.
• Experience structuring preferred equity — liquidation preferences, cash and PIK dividends, ratchets, participation — from the company side.
• Experience adding a second concept to an established single-brand platform.
• CPA or equivalent.

Who will do well here

Someone who has been the finance lead in a company at an inflection point and found that work more interesting than steady state. Someone who reads the credit agreement rather than the summary. Someone who can sit across from a senior loan officer and a family-office principal in the same week and be trusted by both. And someone who is comfortable working for a CEO who builds his own reporting tools and will know if the numbers are not right.

The first ninety days

• Weeks 1–2: take over the lender relationship and the weekly cash committee; review the Q3 covenant certificate before it is filed; meet the capital-markets advisors and outside counsel; sit in the investor meeting.
• Weeks 3–6: own the amendment term sheet; stand up and run the investor data room; reset the budget; close P10 and P11 with the accrual and feed-reconciliation checks in place; Minnesota closing checklist.
• Weeks 7–12: amendment documents to signing; investor confirmatory diligence; Minnesota closed and integration plan staffed; first monthly package shipped from the ledger.

The Company

Atlas Group operates 77 Jimmy John’s restaurants across seven states, with twelve more closing in Minnesota this quarter and a path to more than 150 restaurants in the brand. We are a founder-led company with a thirteen-year history in the brand, store-level economics at or above the system, labor at plan, and a franchisor that has identified us as one of its growth platforms. We are recapitalizing with institutional equity for the first time to reset our balance sheet and fund that growth — and we are hiring the CFO who will lead it.

The role

This is not a steady-state CFO seat. In your first year you will close an equity raise with a strategic investor, negotiate a senior-lender amendment and covenant reset, integrate an acquired restaurant group onto our chart of accounts, underwrite the next one, and rebuild period close and reporting so that our lender, our franchisor and our investor receive one set of numbers from the ledger every month. You will be the second voice in every one of those rooms. When it is done, you will have built the finance function for a platform on its way to more than 150 Jimmy John’s restaurants and an additional brand after that.

You have

• Ten or more years in finance leadership, including CFO or VP Finance in a multi-unit restaurant, retail or franchise business.
• Sat in the borrower’s chair through a senior-lender amendment or covenant reset and come out with the relationship intact.
• Closed a capital raise or recapitalisation — data room through term sheet through funding.
• Integrated acquired restaurants onto a common chart of accounts.
• Fixed a close process and a reporting function that needed fixing, and can describe exactly how.
• Multi-state sales and use tax compliance experience.
• SQL in your hands and an interest in modern data tooling; we run our own Supabase-based finance and operations platform and you will work with the people who built it.

You are

Someone who finds an inflection point more interesting than a steady state, reads the credit agreement rather than the summary, and tells the CEO the uncomfortable thing early. You can hold the trust of a senior loan officer and a family-office principal in the same week. You are comfortable working for a founder who builds his own reporting tools and will notice if the numbers are not right.

What we offer

• Base salary of $225,000–$275,000 depending on experience, with a year-one bonus of up to $150,000 tied to the milestones that matter — the raise, the amendment, the integration, covenant compliance — and a 40% target bonus thereafter.
• Twelve months’ severance protection in the first two years, because we are asking you to leave a stable seat for an inflection point.
• A seat at the table on every decision that shapes the next ten years of a growing franchise platform — past 150 Jimmy John’s restaurants and into an additional brand.

To apply

Send a résumé and a short note — no more than a page — describing one financial situation you took over that was worse than advertised, what you found, and what you did about it. Address it to the Chief Executive Officer at careers@atlaswe.com. We read every one.