Financial Controller | York | £65,000 - £70,000 Build the finance function from the ground up

Most Financial Controller roles hand you a function that already exists.

This one hands you a blank sheet.

There is no handover pack for this job. No predecessor's spreadsheets. No process to inherit. Nobody above you who has done this particular job in this particular business.

For most Financial Controllers, that is a reason to stop reading.

A few of you have just sat up.

The situation

This business has never had a Financial Controller.

For as long as it has existed, the accounting has happened somewhere else. Bookkeeping, management accounts, statutory, year end, all of it, handled end to end by an outsourced provider.

It worked. The company grew, and grew fast.

But nobody inside the building has ever owned the numbers.

The CFO joined eighteen months ago and has spent that time working out what a finance function here should look like.

This role is the answer.

"I want someone who owns it. Not someone who checks with me first." CFO

Why people actually leave a finance job

It is almost never the numbers.

It is a month-end process designed by somebody who left in 2019, that nobody is allowed to change.

It is a manager who wants to be consulted on every decision, then makes it themselves anyway.

It is watching the interesting work go one level up, indefinitely.

It is a system you would never have chosen, and no appetite to replace it.

This role is close to the exact inverse of that list.

You design the month end

Because there isn't one yet.

The close timetable. The reporting pack. The controls. The governance.

Not "own the process". Build it.

The first big decision has been left open for you

Some transactional work still sits with the outsourced provider. Whether that comes in-house or stays out is unresolved.

The CFO has not decided.

He wants whoever takes the job to make the case to him.

At this level, that is genuinely unusual. It is also the clearest evidence in this advert of how much autonomy actually sits in the role.

"I do not want to tell someone what the answer is. I want them to come and tell me." CFO

Your manager wants to be challenged, and there is evidence for it

He is hands-on, detail-orientated and methodical, and honest that he wants the same.

He joined eighteen months ago and built the function he now runs, so he has recently stood exactly where you would be standing.

He is also openly curious about where AI belongs in finance, and treats it as an operational question rather than a slide in a strategy deck. Very few finance leaders at this level are saying that out loud yet.

"If you have got a better way of doing it, I want to hear it. I would rather have that conversation than not." CFO

The growth is proven, not projected

Private equity backed.

EBIT has roughly doubled in under three years, mostly organically, with one bolt-on acquisition.

The target is to double it again ahead of an exit in the medium term.

You would build the infrastructure that makes the second half possible. Which means board and investor exposure, and in time the work of getting a business transaction-ready. That is a hard thing to pick up in a role where the process was built before you arrived.

Being straight with you

This is hands-on controllership. Getting the numbers right, on time, and explainable. Commercial work comes, and the CFO is explicit that he hands it over as you earn it, but it is not the starting point.

It will also not suit you if you want a working process to run rather than one to design. If you need a team underneath you from day one, there isn't one. And if an ambiguous first six months would stress you rather than energise you, this is the wrong job.

On the flip side, if you are an ideas person, loves developing/imprioving/creating better systems, processes, controls and ways of working, then the CFO would love to hear from you!

Whether you are a first-time Financial Controller ready for the title and the ownership. Or a first move out of practice, comfortable being the most senior technical finance person in the building. Or an established FC quietly sick of being told the process cannot change.

Then it is worth a conversation.

The facts

Role: Financial Controller
Location: York, three days a week in the office
Salary: £65,000 - £70,000 depending on experience
Reporting to: CFO, who reports to the CEO
Team: Standalone today, alongside a finance analyst. Building it is part of the job
Qualification: ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualified
Experience: Management accounts, statutory accounts and year end, tax, controls and governance. Private equity, subscription or recurring revenue exposure useful, not essential
Benefits: 5% pension, MediCash health cash plan, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, plus your birthday off

Before you apply

We have prepared, with input from the CFO, a quality candidate pack for this role before we advertised it.

It covers the business, the numbers, the manager, what the first twelve months realistically look like, and an honest section on who the role will not suit.

Ask and it is yours. No CV needed, and nothing goes near the client until you say so.

Javed Bobat, Co-Founder, iFF Talent. Twenty years in finance recruitment, long enough to know how most of it works and to want to do it differently.

iFF Talent is purpose-led by design. 3% of every fee we earn funds our Community Interest Company, supporting social mobility, gender equity and mental health awareness. Alongside that: career mapping and guidance, peer mentoring through The DiFFerence, CV guides and reviews, career guides, and interview preparation built for the specific role and the specific panel.

All of this is available at anytime, not just if you happen to be interested in this role.

jav@ifftalent.com | 07471 155006 Rachel Frankland | rachel@ifftalent.com | 07595 203229

We are running this search together, so either of us can pick it up.