Director, Revenue Accounting

Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world in order to answer the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our bioengineers make use of an in-house automated foundry for designing and building new organisms. 

Ginkgo Finance is entering its next phase as a public company on this very exciting journey of rapid growth and industry-disrupting technologies. Now that Ginkgo has completed its public offering (Q4 2021), adopted two impactful accounting standards (CECL and Leasing, 2022) and finished its first year as a large-accelerated filer subject to reporting of our internal controls over financial reporting (2022), the Accounting, Reporting & Controllership (ARC) organization is campaigning to in-source senior level expertise across various disciplines which had been previously outsourced. If you have demonstrated strength in the world of technical accounting and controllership, we would love to connect with you. Our current team includes the best of the best - starting with strong seniors and analysts led by the most innovative of executive-level directors and vice presidents.

Collectively we’ve designed our various individual accounting organizations (revenue, fixed asset & lease, employee compensation and benefits, etc.) and related policies, procedures and objectives. Now is the time to build out our new layer of talented senior-level leadership to put their fingerprint on these organizations and make them their own. We are a very inclusive team, passionate about our careers and dedicated to being part of something significant. If this sounds like the right opportunity for you, please apply! Curious? Let’s have a conversation.

We are seeking Ginkgo’s first and only Director of Revenue to lead the ARC organization that calculates, analyzes, and reports Ginkgo’s revenue, deferred revenue and/or related receivables. This senior level leader must possess expertise with technical accounting rules pertaining to revenue from contracts with customers (aka ASC 606 and IFRS 15 (given Ginkgo’s globalization)) and be familiar with internal controls over financial reporting (aka SOX 404) associated with revenues and receivables. Such requirements are beyond the primary task of overseeing Ginkgo’s accounting and reporting teams responsible for journalizing revenue, receivables, deferred revenue, other income, intercompany profit and related eliminations along with the related account reconciliations, all invoicing activities, cash application processes,  and associated reporting. 

Ginkgo’s revenue is calculated at points in time or over time, depending on contract terms and conditions, with input methodologies used for all over time revenue recognition. The cost to cost manner of percentage-of-completion is an area where you will drive innovation and efficiency in Ginkgo’s future processes. 

The Director, Revenue Accounting is a high visibility people leadership role that reports to the Corporate Controller, and will oversee the Sr. Manager Revenue Controller, who leads a small team. Indirect reports include customer-facing business or site-specific teams in business development/ commercial/ project management. You will also have the support of the Financial Systems team for purposes of automating as much as possible of an otherwise manually-derived accounting area. 

Responsibilities

• Ownership of all policies and procedures associated with revenue accounting, reporting (internal and/or external) and controllership activities - as Ginkgo is  publicly traded company subject to SOX 404, all such policy/ procedural steps have been designed and are operating. Your role is not to create or design new, but to continue and refine existing. In particular, you will support the Chief Accounting Officer in ensuring all revenue guidelines are published and easily understood by others in the organization sufficient for them to do their jobs. Therefore, not only is your 606 expertise very important, but so is your ability to translate accounting-heavy concepts to non-finance customer-facing personnel. 
• Continued monitoring of new or evolving revenue pronouncements from the FASB/ IASB; SEC; Big 4 or other with active representation of Ginkgo at various benchmarking or outreach initiatives. 
• Approval of deliverables provided to the US government associated with Ginkgo’s responsibilities as a government contractor. This includes a deep understanding of the Federal Acquisition Regulations and Cost Accounting Standards board and requires a constant oversight of submissions made to the respective government customer(s). 
• Second-level reviewer of all account reconciliations, journal entries inclusive of underlying calculation documentation - for this, your organization is assigned discrete General Ledger accounts and reports (via NetSuite) under your purview for which you are responsible. This is likely to be your primary objective as part of this role.
• Approver for all financial statement disclosures including footnote and press release materials, associated from revenue with customers or related balance sheet amounts.
• Final reviewer of all internal control evidence to ensure it is produced accurately, timely, and is audit-ready when and as needed. To the extent any internal controls or processes require change or improvement, it is expected that your team will be included in both the identification and remediation activities.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in accounting or finance with an active Certified Public Accounting (CPA) license 
• 10+ years of technical accounting experience, with 5+ years as a people manager
• 3+ years of direct experience with ASC 606/ IFRS 15 associated with revenue from contracts with customers. Relevant activities include documenting accounting conclusions on new or modified customer contracts (such as through accounting position papers); completion of revenue analysis and commentary formulation such as that provided to executive leadership for decision-making purposes; and/or financial statement disclosure preparation and reviews
• Expert operational knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel) and/or Google’s suite of offerings including Google Docs, Google Sheets). 

Preferred Capabilities and Experience

• MSA or MBA degree
• Experience in public company accounting and reporting such as through an audit/ assurance role within a large public accounting firm such as the Big 4
• Working knowledge with Oracle NetSuite; Workday; Coupa; Blackline; and Adaptive tools
• Ability to be an active stakeholder in new system or application implementations which includes working across function to be clear on downstream requirements while also anticipating and preventing unintended issues 
• Prior experience reviewing and/or supervising a global team which operates differently for US GAAP vs. local statutory purposes

Total compensation for this role is market driven, with a starting salary of $175,000+, as well as company stock awards.  Base pay is ultimately determined based on a candidate's skills, expertise, and experience.  We also offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental & vision coverage, health spending accounts, voluntary benefits, leave of absence policies, Employee Assistance Program, 401(k) program with employer contribution, 8 paid holidays in addition to a full-week winter shutdown and unlimited Paid Time Off policy.

To learn more about Ginkgo, visit www.ginkgobioworks.com/press/ or check out some curated press below:

• What is it really like to take your company public via a SPAC? One Boston biotech shares its journey (Fortune)
• Ginkgo Bioworks resizes the definition of going big in biotech, raising $2.5B in a record SPAC deal that weighs in with a whopping $15B-plus valuation (Endpoints News)
• Ginkgo Bioworks CEO on scaling up Covid-19 testing: ‘If we try, we can win’ (CNBC)
• Ginkgo raises $70 million to ramp up COVID-19 testing for employers, universities (Boston Globe)
• Ginkgo Bioworks Redirects Its Biotech Platform to Coronavirus (Wall Street Journal)
• Ginkgo Bioworks Provides Support on Process Optimization to Moderna for COVID-19 Response (PRNewswire)
• The Life Factory: Synthetic Organisms From This $1.4 Billion Startup Will Revolutionize Manufacturing (Forbes)
• Synthetic Bio Pioneer Ginkgo Raises $290 Million in New Funding (Bloomberg)
• Ginkgo Bioworks raises $350 million fund for biotech spinouts (Reuters)
• Can This Company Convince You to Love GMOs? (The Atlantic)

We also feel that it’s important to point out the obvious here – there’s a serious lack of diversity in our industry, and that needs to change. Our goal is to help drive that change. Ginkgo is deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all of its practices, especially when it comes to growing our team. Our culture promotes inclusion and embraces how rewarding it is to work with people from all walks of life.  

We’re developing a powerful biological engineering platform, so we must remain mindful of the many ways our technology can – and will – impact people around the world. We care about how our platform is used, and having a diverse team to build it gives us the best chance that it’s something we’ll be proud of as it continues to grow. Therefore, it’s critical that we incorporate the diverse voices and visions of all those who play a role in the future of biology.

It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees, employment applicants, and EOE disability/vet.  

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