Group Chief Financial Officer

About the role

This role exists to bridge the gap between a standalone education business and a diversified financial services group. It involves building a valuation framework, structuring the group to maximize its value, and preparing the group for institutional-grade financials.

Responsibilities

• Build the sum-of-the-parts valuation framework across every business unit, with a defensible methodology and comparables set for each
• Structure each entity so that it maximizes its own multiple, and structure the group so the whole is worth more than the parts
• Take the group from founder-run reporting to institutional-grade financials that survive a quality-of-earnings review and a full due diligence process
• Closely monitor the cash engine's performance and protect its economics
• Design the employee incentive architecture at group level, ensuring alignment before a transaction
• Stand up the regulated fund and the investor infrastructure behind it
• Design the holding-company structure, select and implement the group ERP and consolidation platform
• Own the framework that decides where the next dollar of operating cash goes
• Lead the fund structuring, regulation and investor infrastructure, including jurisdiction and structure selection, and build investor reporting infrastructure
• Own treasury, cash and group risk, including cash forecasts, working capital, banking, merchant accounts and payment processors, and digital asset exposure
• Own legal and corporate affairs, including the relationship with, and the budget for, external counsel, auditors, tax advisers and transaction advisers across jurisdictions

Requirements

• 10-20 years in finance, including 3+ years as CFO, Group CFO or VP Finance with full P&L and balance sheet accountability
• Direct, hands-on experience of a transaction. You have been on a sell-side or minority sale process and can describe what you personally built - the model, the CIM, the data room, the diligence responses - and what went wrong
• Multi-entity holdco or portfolio experience. You have run finance across several unlike businesses, not one company with divisions, and you can explain how you consolidated and how you allocated between them
• Sum-of-the-parts fluency. You can value a software business, a subscription publishing business, a services business and a fee-earning investment business, and explain why each methodology is the right one
• Performance-marketing economics. You have owned unit economics in a business spending meaningful money on paid acquisition - CAC, LTV, payback, front end versus back end
• Multi-jurisdiction experience with real consolidation, ideally including the UAE, the US and Europe
• Fully conversant in both IFRS and US GAAP, and able to defend technical positions under scrutiny
• Prolific, demonstrable user of AI tools in finance work - you can show us what you have built or automated
• Financial services depth - you have worked across at least two of publishing, education, software, wealth management or fund management
• Strong preference for PE-backed or PE operating experience - you understand how institutional buyers think and what they discount
• Crypto and digital asset exposure. You do not need to be a trader, but you cannot be squeamish about the asset class
• Subscription accounting and deferred revenue depth across high-ticket, payment plan and recurring products

Preferred

• Financial services depth - you have worked across at least two of publishing, education, software, wealth management or fund management
• PE-backed or PE operating experience - you understand how institutional buyers think and what they discount
• Crypto and digital asset exposure. You do not need to be a trader, but you cannot be squeamish about the asset class

What You Must Bring

• Required 10-20 years in finance, including 3+ years as CFO, Group CFO or VP Finance with full P&L and balance sheet accountability
• Required direct, hands-on experience of a transaction. You have been on a sell-side or minority sale process and can describe what you personally built - the model, the CIM, the data room, the diligence responses - and what went wrong
• Required multi-entity holdco or portfolio experience. You have run finance across several unlike businesses, not one company with divisions, and you can explain how you consolidated and how you allocated between them
• Required sum-of-the-parts fluency. You can value a software business, a subscription publishing business, a services business and a fee-earning investment business, and explain why each methodology is the right one
• Required performance-marketing economics. You have owned unit economics in a business spending meaningful money on paid acquisition - CAC, LTV, payback, front end versus back end
• Required multi-jurisdiction experience with real consolidation, ideally including the UAE, the US and Europe
• Required fully conversant in both IFRS and US GAAP, and able to defend technical positions under scrutiny
• Required prolific, demonstrable user of AI tools in finance work - you can show us what you have built or automated
• Required financial services depth - you have worked across at least two of publishing, education, software, wealth management or fund management
• Required PE-backed or PE operating experience - you understand how institutional buyers think and what they discount
• Required crypto and digital asset exposure. You do not need to be a trader, but you cannot be squeamish about the asset class
• Required subscription accounting and deferred revenue depth across high-ticket, payment plan and recurring products

What You Do Not Need to Bring

• You do not need to be a lawyer
• You do not need to treat paid acquisition as a strategic cost lever
• You do not need six months to ramp before you add value
• You do not need to prefer slow-moving, consensus-heavy environments
• You do not need to fold when a founder pushes back
• You do not need to build the financial architecture that makes a diversified group worth substantially more than the sum of its operating profits
• You do not need to be actively using AI tools in your work today

Personality & Cultural Fit

• Direct communicator who challenges the founders with data, in the room, in real time
• Equally credible with a PE partner and with a media buyer. Both conversations happen in the same week here
• Entrepreneurial and comfortable in ambiguity - you build the answer rather than wait for the brief
• Zero tolerance for sloppy reporting, in your team or in yourself
• Builder mentality. Comfortable in the model and in the detail when it matters

Benefits

• Competitive base, depending on transaction and holdco experience
• Performance bonus tied to enterprise value creation, not just operating margin
• A transaction bonus on a successful capital event - the upside here is material and it is the point of the role
• Equity participation under the C-suite framework, structured so you have skin in the game before the event rather than after it
• UAE-based roles are tax-free, which materially changes take-home pay
• Direct access to the founders, a peer relationship with the Group COO, and genuine authority over how capital is deployed
• An inherited finance team, so you are building the architecture rather than clearing a backlog alone