Principal Business Insights Analyst
Overview
We’re seeking a highly analytical, strategic, and influential Principal, Business Insights to serve as a senior individual contributor within the Operational Excellence organization. This role is responsible for translating complex business and operational data into forward-looking insights that inform enterprise-level decisions across the COO organization.
The Principal operates with significant autonomy, serving as a recognized expert in business insights and analytics and a trusted thought partner to senior leaders. This role synthesizes data and business inputs across functions to identify trends, forecast outcomes, surface risks and opportunities, and provide actionable recommendations that influence strategic priorities, operational plans, and investment decisions.
The ideal candidate combines deep analytical expertise with exceptional business acumen and executive presence, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, connect disparate information, and influence decisions across a complex organization.
What You’ll Do
Business Insights & Strategic Analysis
- Lead complex, high-impact analyses that span multiple business functions, translating operational, customer, financial, and workforce data into actionable insights and strategic recommendations.
- Identify emerging trends, risks, and opportunities across the COO organization and proactively develop insights that inform executive decision-making and strategic priorities.
- Develop forecasting models, scenarios, and analytical frameworks that help leaders understand business drivers, anticipate outcomes, and make informed planning decisions.
- Serve as a recognized subject matter expert in business insights, establishing analytical approaches and standards that improve the quality and consistency of decision-making across the organization.
Executive Decision Support & Data Storytelling
- Serve as a strategic analytical thought partner to the COO and senior leaders, helping frame complex business questions, identify the right data and analysis, and translate findings into clear recommendations.
- Synthesize fragmented and complex information into concise, executive-ready narratives that clearly articulate what is happening, where the business is headed, why it matters, and what actions should be considered.
- Develop executive reporting and analytical content supporting leadership meetings, business reviews, QBRs, annual planning, and other strategic operating cadences.
- Influence senior leadership through data, insights, and sound judgment, including on decisions involving capacity, organizational planning, customer outcomes, investments, and operational priorities.
Business Forecasting & Planning
- Aggregate operational, commercial, capacity, workforce, customer, and expense inputs across the COO organization to develop consolidated business forecasts and planning views.
- Partner with Finance by providing business assumptions, operational drivers, and directional forecasts that inform financial planning and forecasting cycles without duplicating Finance ownership.
- Develop analytical frameworks that connect business drivers to expected outcomes and enable leaders to evaluate scenarios, tradeoffs, and potential impacts.
- Identify material changes in business performance or assumptions and proactively surface implications for plans, priorities, and resource allocation.
Customer & Retention Intelligence
- Develop and maintain sophisticated views of customer health, retention, usage, engagement, and satisfaction to identify trends and emerging risks across the COO portfolio.
- Develop leading indicators and predictive frameworks that help operational leaders identify potential customer and retention issues before they appear in lagging business results.
- Partner with customer-facing and operational leaders to translate customer intelligence into prioritized opportunities and actionable interventions.
- Establish scalable analytical approaches that improve the organization's ability to understand and proactively manage customer outcomes.
Cross-Functional Leadership & Enterprise Impact
- Lead analytical work across functions and organizational boundaries, aligning stakeholders around shared business questions, metrics, assumptions, and recommendations.
- Partner with Business Insights, Finance, Operations, Technology, and other functions to connect disparate data and perspectives into a cohesive view of business performance.
- Identify opportunities to significantly improve existing analytical processes, reporting practices, and decision-support capabilities, and lead implementation of improved approaches.
- Independently scope and lead ambiguous, high-visibility initiatives from problem definition through analysis, recommendation, and implementation, influencing outcomes without direct authority.
Insights Infrastructure & Data Quality
- Establish and improve analytical frameworks, methodologies, and standards that enable scalable, reliable business insights across the COO organization.
- Assess data availability, quality, and limitations and partner with Data Engineering and other technical teams to improve the data foundations required for effective decision-making.
- Ensure dashboards, models, reporting, and analytical outputs are aligned to business needs and provide consistent definitions and measures across functions.
- Identify opportunities to automate, simplify, and significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of insight generation and reporting.
What We’re Looking For
Required
- 8+ years of progressive experience in business intelligence, analytics, business operations, strategy & operations, consulting, or a related discipline.
- Recognized expertise in translating complex business and operational data into actionable insights and strategic recommendations.
- Demonstrated ability to independently lead highly complex, ambiguous, cross-functional initiatives with significant organizational impact.
- Strong experience with forecasting, scenario modeling, KPI development, dashboarding, and data-driven decision-making.
- Proven ability to influence senior and executive leaders through analytical rigor, business acumen, and compelling data storytelling.
- Strong proficiency in SQL, Excel, and data visualization tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or Looker.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate complex concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong judgment and ability to operate with significant autonomy, determining the appropriate analytical approach without established processes or direction.
Preferred
- Experience supporting a COO, operations, customer organization, or similarly complex executive function.
- Experience in SaaS, fintech, payments, technology, or customer operations.
- Experience partnering closely with FP&A or Finance teams on planning, forecasting, and investment decisions.
- Experience with customer retention, churn, customer health, or predictive operational analytics.
- Experience with analytics programming languages such as Python, R, or SAS.
- Experience with A/B testing, statistical modeling, customer segmentation, or predictive analytics.
Success in This Role
Success in this role is measured by the organization's ability to use data and insights to make faster, better-informed decisions and improve business outcomes at scale.
The Principal will be recognized as an expert in Business Insights and a trusted thought partner to senior leadership. They will independently identify opportunities, frame complex business problems, develop new analytical approaches and processes, and influence strategic decisions across the COO organization.
This role will have enterprise-level impact by connecting disparate business and operational inputs into a clear, forward-looking view of performance, enabling leaders to anticipate risks, evaluate tradeoffs, prioritize resources, and take action with confidence.
About AvidXchange
AvidXchange is a leading provider of accounts payable (“AP”) automation software and payment solutions for middle-market businesses and their suppliers. By trade, we are a technology company, but if you ask anyone who works here, they’ll tell you our people are at the core of who we are. At AvidXchange, mindset is everything. We are Connected as People, Growth Minded, and Customer Obsessed. These three mindsets represent our culture – who we are, who we’ve always been, and they guide us to improve every day. Since our founding in 2000 in Charlotte, NC, we’ve created a company of over 1,500 teammates working across the U.S., or remotely. AvidXchange is proud to be Certified™ as a Great Place to Work®. The prestigious recognition is based on anonymous data from our teammates and makes official what our teammates have known for years – that AvidXchange is a Great Place to Work®.
Who you are
- A go-getter with an entrepreneurial mindset – that means you are not afraid of taking risks, winning big or facing the unknown.
- Someone who understands that business is people centric. Connecting with others as humans first allows you to develop mutually beneficial working relationships.
- Focused on making a difference for our customers. AvidXchange exists to help solve complex problems for our customers so we can all realize our potential.
What you’ll get
AvidXchange teammates (we call them AvidXers) get the perks and prestige of a growing tech company paired with the flexibility of a founder-led startup. We help our AvidXers develop as professionals and as human beings, providing work/life balance, development programs, and competitive benefits. At AvidXchange, we are building more than a tech company – we are building an experience. We remain committed to a culture where you can fully be 'you’ – connected with others, chasing big goals, and making a meaningful impact. If you want to help us grow while...