Senior Analyst, Travel & Expense

About the Role

As a Senior Analyst, Travel & Expense, you will run the day-to-day financial controls, audit program, and executive reporting behind Anthropic's T&E function. T&E touches every employee, every legal entity, and every executive, and it runs on Navan, Brex, and negotiated supplier agreements. Spend and transaction volume have grown several-fold in the past six quarters, and the controls need to scale to meet a public-company standard.

You will report to the Head of Travel & Expense in Finance Operations and work daily with Accounting, Tax, Payroll, Talent, Security, Legal, Finance Systems and Administrative Business Partners.

Responsibilities

Controls & SOX Compliance

• Own the day-to-day operation of key T&E controls, including approvals, card issuance and spend limits, segregation of duties, and policy exceptions, within the control framework set by the Head of T&E, who owns the overall T&E process
• Maintain the T&E process narratives and risk and control matrix, and keep them current as systems and policies change
• Ensure correct GL coding and complete, accurate month-end reconciliations across Navan, Brex, and Workday, and support close, flux analysis, and accruals
• Act as the preparer for T&E controls and the day-to-day contact for internal and external auditors: gather and retain evidence, support walkthroughs and sample requests, and track remediation, escalating significant issues to the Head of T&E

International Expansion Controls

• Set up and maintain entity-level coding and approval flows in Brex and Navan as new legal entities and countries come online
• Document and operationalize country-specific rules for per diems, VAT reclaim, non-USD cards, receipt requirements, and local tax treatment
• Partner with Tax, Payroll, and Global Mobility to ensure compliance
• Support accurate intercompany treatment of T&E costs across entities

T&E Audit Program

• Help design, build, and run a risk-based audit program covering sampling, anomaly detection, misuse escalation, and remediation tracking
• Define and monitor pre-spend rules, duplicate and split-transaction checks, and receipt and 30-day submission compliance
• Build dashboards and reporting on policy compliance, exceptions, and control performance for Finance leadership
• Partner with the Head of T&E to deploy Claude to review transactions, flag policy exceptions, and automate recurring reporting

Program Operations

• Own day-to-day T&E operations, supporting the growing volume of travel and expense activity and platform configuration and automation, so operations keep running without pulling focus from controls
• Own transaction-level review and receipt follow-up, and help shape what should be automated rather than staffed
• Partner with Benefits, Payroll and Legal to ensure the T&E program is compliant with relevant local and country requirements

Preferred qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in travel and expense, corporate accounting, internal audit, or finance operations, ideally at a high-growth technology company
• Hands-on SOX or internal-controls experience: writing process narratives, testing or operating key controls, and working with external auditors
• Strong accounting fundamentals, including GL coding, account reconciliations, accruals, and month-end close support
• Deep platform expertise in Navan and/or comparable TMC platforms, plus Brex or equivalent expense management tools, and working knowledge of ERP integrations (Workday preferred)
• Strong analytical skills: comfort with large transaction datasets, sampling methods, and anomaly detection
• Sound judgment and discretion with sensitive information, and the ability to work credibly with senior executives and their support teams
• Clear written and verbal communication, with the ability to explain a control or an exception to Finance leaders, auditors, and employees
• An AI-curious, builder mindset: experience automating finance workflows with AI tools, or real enthusiasm for doing so, and comfort creating structure where none exists
• CPA, CIA, or equivalent certification
• Experience with multi-entity, multi-currency environments, including per diem rules, VAT reclaim, and cross-border tax considerations
• Experience with pre-IPO or newly public company readiness
• M&A integration experience a huge plus