Finance Director

Finance Director

Blenheim Chalcot is one of the leading venture builders in the world. Headquartered in London from our flagship White City Scale Space campus, we have been building exciting and disruptive businesses for over 20 years. Blenheim Chalcot is responsible for building some of the most innovative companies in the UK and increasingly around the world – with significant operations in India and the US, as well as emerging operations in South Africa and South East Asia.

Our portfolio companies employ in excess of 4000 people, with the central BC team itself numbering 350 - and all are scaling up rapidly. Our assets under management are in excess of £1.8 billion.

We are heading into a period of ambitious scaling at Blenheim Chalcot and across our businesses, in existing and new geographies. As a result, we need a world class Finance Director to join one of our education businesses, Avado.

Avado is an award-winning learning partner who design and deliver digital, interactive learning experiences. These are aimed at equipping a diverse pool of UK talent with the digital, data and business skills that they need to power both the growth of their organisation and themselves.

Enabling this learning delivery Avado is operating at the leading-edge of Generative AI, both in terms of courses and workshops on GenAI for our learners as well as developing new software and automations to help both Avado and other learning providers deliver a better learner experience.

We are proud to support some of the largest and most innovative organisations in the UK including: Google, BT, NHS, British Airways, UK Civil Service, Legal & General and AstraZeneca with their important people transformation challenges.

We help them to:

• Reduce the time it takes to recruit new talent and make these new hires work ready.
• Reduce the cost of recruitment and increase new hire success rate.
• Increase diversity, driving enhanced levels of innovation and organisational agility.
• Improve their use of UK government skills support, such as the apprenticeship levy and skills boot-camp funding.

At the forefront of Avado's offering sits FastFutures, a work-readiness programme which provides young people from all backgrounds with the digital business skills organisations need, kickstarting their careers and addressing the skills gap for employers. Since its launch in 2020, FastFutures has had over 5000 young people graduate from the programme. Many of these have then continued their development by progressing onto our digital apprenticeship programmes developed in collaboration with industry partners such as CIPD and Tableau.

We are seeking a Finance Director to own the end-to-end Finance function for Avado and to be part of the Avado Senior Management Team. The Finance Director will be employed by Blenheim Chalcot, the UK's leading digital venture builder and majority shareholder of Avado. The Finance Director will be seconded full-time into Avado on a long-term assignment while also benefiting from being part of the Blenheim Chalcot Finance Director community and the longer-term career opportunities that the wider BC portfolio offers.

OUR BEHAVIOURS

• Honesty and integrity – trustworthy
• Resilience - keeps going when the going gets tough, remains optimistic in the face of challenges, open to feedback and willingness to change and experiment
• Team work – is collaborative and supportive, elevating and developing others to deliver results
• Innovation - restless to improve, challenges how to make things better
• Deliver results - keeps promises, drives to achieve, commitment to high quality work
• People awareness – collaborative and supportive, respectful
• Commercial awareness - looks for best value solutions for the business, understand costs / revenues, spends money wisely

THE ROLE

What you will be doing

As the FD, your role will be fundamental to the successful development and growth of Avado, and with that will encompass responsibilities that include, but are not limited to the list below.

• Support on executing ambitious plans and strategic decisions based on financial data and insight relating to the overall performance of the portfolio company.
• You will partner with the CEO and executive team to shape the evolving business and financial model
• You will develop and enhance their financial foundation with appropriate systems and processes that will allow the business to grow effectively over the next several years.
• You will analyse business risks and opportunities, and drive recommendations as they affect the financial results of the business.
• You will ensure best in class practices around compliance and accounting practices, including an operational foundation to support significant growth.
• You will recruit, motivate, and mentor a growing team that will scale with the organization.
• You will run end-to-end finance including financial reporting, regulatory reporting, cash management, financial systems, FP&A and MI.
• You will interact with external stakeholders including shareholders, auditors, banks, professional advisors, and suppliers.

REQUIREMENTS

What we expect from you from a personal perspective:

• You will be a dynamic and disciplined thinker with a strong intellect, an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for making a mark in fast-paced, growing environments.
• You will be entrepreneurial with an ability to flourish while working alongside similarly intellectually curious senior executives.
• You will have a low ego, be able to thrive in a learning environment and be willing to listen.
• You will be pragmatic and outcome-oriented, with a bias for action and ability to rapidly adjust as required.
• You will have experience operating in a matrix and constantly changing environment, and will have demonstrable experience navigating a fast paced, dynamic working environment.

The ideal candidate

• Qualified accountant (+6 years PQE)
• Experience as a FD/Head of Finance in leading an end-to-end Finance function
• You will have proven success serving as a true business partner to C-Suite and executive teams within a high growth organization or asset manager.
• You will have experience identifying business opportunities, analysing the competitive landscape, and developing financial models that are consistent with the company's overall strategy.
• You will be able to demonstrate the ability to initiate and drive growth, and have the flexibility to adapt to a dynamic, entrepreneurial environment.
• You will possess the business acumen and broad financial perspective to act as a strategic sounding board to the Avado management team.
• You will have a demonstrable track record of overseeing both accounting and financial planning & analysis functions.

PROCESS

We have a rigorous recruitment process, which we use for all our roles to ensure we attract the very best talent.

Blenheim Chalcot is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer. Diversity is one of our core values, thus making it core to our business. We strive to maximise the diversity of our workforce and welcome applications from everyone. We encourage diversity through perspective, background, identity, and thought whilst also fostering an environment where everyone can express themselves regardless of your race, religion, sex, gender, colour, national origin, disability, or any other applicable legally protected characteristic. We are committed to continuing to nurture an inclusive environment and building a diverse workforce.