Financial Director
Finance Director
Reports to: COO / Founders
City of London, Hybrid
Competitive Basic salary + bonus
The role:
The commercial and financial brain of Wave's leadership. Models the future of the business,
structures the capital that funds it, and owns the decisions founders would otherwise have to
make themselves. Thinks like the founders and backs it up with rigour. A senior visible presence
in the business, the final point of escalation before founder involvement on finance and
commercial decisions, and the person investors meet before they meet the founders. This is a
CFO-equivalent role with heavy commercial judgement, not a financial controller. The Interim
Finance Manager owns the execution layer beneath; this role owns the strategic, commercial,
and capital thinking above it.
What you own and what success looks like:
Financial strategy and growth modelling
- Own Wave's live financial model across revenue trajectory, EBITDA bridge, cash position, and valuation. No significant decision reaches the founders without a financial model attached. Produce the board and investor financial narrative at a consistent cadence.
Capital structure: debt, equity, and growth investment
- Own the capital structure strategy across three geographies and three business lines. Manage the invoice finance facility and evaluate alternative debt instruments. Own the equity financing strategy: when, at what valuation, from whom, on what terms. Manage the cash cycle proactively, not reactively.
International expansion finance
- Own the financial architecture for US and UAE growth: investment cases, funding models, inter-company structures, and return expectations. Build break-even headcount models and entity funding structures for each new geography. Own the intercompany accounting framework and country-specific finance briefings.
Group P&L and financial governance
- Own the group P&L and margin discipline across all three business lines. Own the financial governance framework: sign-off thresholds, approval levels, escalation structure. The final escalation point before founder involvement on finance and commercial decisions. Maintain the financial risk register.
Finance systems and Mothership integration
- Own the requirements brief for the Xero to Mothership financial data integration. Define what the financial reporting layer in Mothership needs to surface. Lead the R&D tax credit programme.
Statutory compliance and multi-entity risk
- Own all statutory obligations across UK entities and active international jurisdictions. Maintain the group compliance calendar and risk register. Manage the external advisor network.
Direct report leadership
Lead and develop the Interim Finance Manager at pace with the business's growth.
Who we are looking for:
- Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, or CIMA) with significant post-qualification experience in
- a scaling professional services, SaaS, or tech-enabled business
- Heavy commercial judgement, not just financial discipline; reads a business situation and
- identifies the financial implication without being asked
- Senior presence and gravitas with clients, investors, and advisors
- Thinks like a founder and backs it up with rigour; builds models from scratch that drive
- decisions, rather than reporting on outcomes
- Capital markets experience: managed debt facilities, participated in equity raises, or
- structured growth financing
- Multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction finance experience
- Willing to challenge founders and SLT with data and back their own calls with conviction
- Comfortable being the final escalation point on decisions that do not need founder
- involvement
- AI-literate; restructures working practices around AI tools
- High trust, high accountability