Strategic Finance Lead

Want to join a young start up with a big vision to reshape the narrative and raise the bar for beauty standards? This company’s mission is to create hair and beauty solutions that truly work, by listening closely and making the outsiders their insiders.

The role

RUKA Hair are looking for a Strategic Finance Lead to join the team!

You will be primarily responsible for building their Finance Department and therefore implementing financial robustness across the business, as well as supporting the C-team in building out the forecasts, budgets and data cuts which will enable data-driven decision making.

You’ll continually monitor and assess their actual financial results against your original forecasts/budgets. Naturally you will get deeply involved in the management accounting and reporting process being the key contact with the external accounting team.

You’ll partner with functional leads across the team to continually track and monitor financial information in those areas. You will drive the collation and framing of company data points to support storyline building ahead of Board and other shareholder meetings.

Up your avenue? Then read on!

What else will you be doing?

What your day-to-day could look like…

• Create flexible models to forecast the evolution of our business’s growth, margins, expansion plans, and overhead
• Build the data/reporting processes to provide actionable insights to leadership across the company within data-appropriate time-boxes (i.e. weekly, monthly, yearly)
• Manage all aspects of cash flow by monitoring the in and outflows of capital (e.g., optimise the internal payables and expense tracking processes)
• Own all aspects of accounting operations & financial reporting (including taxes, audits etc) in collaboration with external service providers
• Manage payroll and employee benefits programs to ensure their employees (the most valuable assets) are paid and taken care of
• Direct the preparation of all financial statements, including income statements, balance sheets, investor updates, tax returns, and governmental agency reports
• Partner with the C-team on financial planning, revenue strategies, and results management
• Partner with senior team members across functions on spend forecasting, managing budgets and analysing ROI
• Partner with Head of Ops to review demand planning, unit economics optimisation and other commercial operations areas
• Support the C-team in creating materials for fundraising, board meetings and other pitches

The timeline

What the next 6 months could look like:

• You’ll have taken ownership of RUKA’s financials, and would be pulling out insights in their data across the business

What the next 12 months could look like:

• You could move on to become their Head of Finance!

Who are they looking for?

• Strong background in finance and/or accounting (e.g., investment banking, consulting, FP&A/accounting)
• Ideally experience building & owning pieces of a finance function, both quant- & qualitative, at an early-stage, high growth company
• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Accounting/Finance/Business; CPA or CMA certification is highly preferred
• Proven track-record & passion for creating, driving, and delivering data-backed decisions and outputs
• Data-driven mindset, strong business judgment, and proven ability to perform analysis, draw key insights, and form and execute a strategy
• Willingness to get your hands dirty, lead by example, and motivate others to adopt new processes and shift mindsets
• Process orientated, with a meticulous attention to detail alongside rigorous organisation & time-management
• Strong Excel skills for modelling, plus exposure to accounting platforms (e.g. Xero)
• Proven experience using different mediums (e.g. powerpoint, reports etc) to synthesise and communicate the story from data
• Mission-driven and motivated about putting in hours that will ultimately build a never-before-seen brand

The exciting bits!

• A front seat and tremendous autonomy in building a global beauty brand
• A passionate core team excited to work collaboratively to build an incredible business addressing an underserved market
• Flexible hours and hybrid/remote working to help meet your lifestyle goals
• Fun team perks including social events
• Additional sick leave allocation for people who menstruate
• Free RUKA products and merchandise for you, plus family and friends discount

More about RUKA

RUKA hair are a young start up with a big vision; to reshape the narrative and raise the bar for beauty standards, one solution at a time. The word RUKA means “doing hair” in Shona, and they mean it when they say they want to do hair like it has never been done before.

Their mission is to create hair and beauty solutions that truly work, by listening closely and making the outsiders the insiders. RUKA want to build a brand for black women worth being loyal to, and they’re starting by developing curly hair extensions which truly match our curl patterns.

Tagged as: accounting, Finance, Management, Remote Working, SME