A Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is sought by a central London technology company working at the cutting edge of financial data analysis. The company operates a web based platform that hosts data from the world’s leading trading venues. The Company is rapidly approaching 50 staff and expects to continue to grow. To support the CEO in running the Company, the Company wants to appoint a CFO. The CFO will be responsible for all financial aspects of running the business and will provide a core contribution towards the company’s future success.
The Role
The CFO will report directly to the CEO. The CFO’s work will have the following main strands;
- Vanilla in-house accounting & finance as per any business of under 100 people.
- Complex financial applications around: InnovateUK, HMRC R&D claims, private placement of equity, financial modelling of the business.
- Helping the technical team build out and scale the automated payments system. Challenges this task presents include: Large numbers of daily transactions; Large transaction volumes; Inter-country taxation, including VAT; FX issues.
The CFO will own and have full and final accountability and responsibility for these strands. As the client does not itself trade on any financial markets, the role will not involve any compliance monitoring or regulatory reporting.
The CFO will have a junior accounts person to help with the following finance functions,
- Company secretarial work
- Payroll
- End of year accounts
- Company tax returns
- Liaison with the Company auditors
The functions the CFO and his team will perform in-house include,
- Book keeping
- VAT returns
- Management accounts
- Cash flow forecasting
- Business planning
- Board minutes and communication
- Maintaining the shareholder register and staff option agreements
- Paying people
- Responsibility for the Company bank account
- Working with venture capital firms
- Ad hoc questions from the Board of Directors
- Assisting in the design and running of the payments platform.
You will be a member of the firm’s core Executive team and should be comfortable handling complex situations as they arise with gusto and enthusiasm. You will be focused on advising and planning ahead more than looking back and keeping the score.
REQUIREMENTS
Your Profile
You will have been an FD and are looking to move forward with an ambitious FinTech firm. You will want to step into a CFO role with all that encompasses. The successful candidate must have extensive experience in accounting, finance and corporate governance. In addition to this they will enjoy building out organizations and roles, as opposed to just taking over an existing role. They will have the confidence of their convictions to make difficult business decisions and execute on them.
You should be:
- Influencing – They have to earn respect, with a tone of voice that gets them heard in honest and difficult conversations, and where their personality and character are strengths.
- Inspiring – They build trust and respect across the organisation, harnessing the skills of everyone to work together to deliver long-term value to the business.
- Innovative – They explore innovative ways to lead and navigate business growth, manage the associated risks and complexities of driving a startup through its growth phases.
- Impactful – They have gravitas, creating impact through discussion, debate and action, using narrative to ensure that their point of view is understood and heard.
Essential Requirements
- A minimum of 2 years post-qualifying experience
- ACA qualification
- Experience of the CFO/FD role at a small to medium sized business.
Desirable Requirements
- Experience in the automated payments space, ideally with web-scale transaction volumes.
- A STEM degree and an MBA qualification
- An understanding of The Companies Act 2006.
- Detailed understanding of the financial markets including experience working with the participants (hedge funds/ investment banks and Exchanges).
- Comfortable with legal documentation – eg human resources, technology, legal, and information technology
- Experience of working with a Board of Directors as well as Investors.
To apply, please forward your CV to: graham.oates@njr.uk.com quoting job reference NJR/GO073.