Vice President Finance

Finatal is partnered with a top tier Large Cap PE firm looking for a VP of Finance for one of its portfolio companies in the multi-site fitness space that is expanding from the UK to the US. The existing international business has 650 locations across 5 markets ($800M revenue), recently acquired a well-known brand in the US, and is looking to quickly scale their US locations. The Company is looking for a high caliber and experienced finance professional to own the US finance function of the business.

Reporting to the Group CFO in the UK, the US VP of Finance will be a key member of the US senior management team and is responsible for accurate and timely reporting of the US business’ finances, overseeing robust financial systems and processes and maintaining a strong control environment.

Core Responsibilities:

• Financial Reporting: The VP of Finance is responsible for ensuring that the finance function delivers on the necessary submissions to allow the Group CFO to meet its consolidated monthly reporting requirements to the Board.
• Forward Planning & Budgeting: the VP of Finance is responsible for oversight of the US budget and forecasts, including P&L, BS, cashflow and presentation materials for the Board. In doing so, they work to ensure the right balance of stretch and realism. S/he also ensures there are appropriate contingencies so the business has adequate headroom within which to manage its operations and commitments.
• Financial Control: The VP of Finance ensures that the financial control framework is operating correctly, is fit for purpose and well managed across all of the US transactional functions, including AP, cash management, payroll and management accounts. S/he will also ensure adherence to the Group’s delegation of authority matrix and ensure that there are processes in place to protect against fraudulent activity, miss-statements or other errors. The VP Finance plays a key role in monitoring and controlling costs in the business and working closely with the Group’s central procurement function to identify and drive cost savings through scale benefits and more sophisticated buying arrangements and terms.
• Capex Control Environment: The VP of Finance ensures the sophisticated and rigorous assessment of capital investment proposals is used consistently. There is a significant amount of new site capital investment and re-investment activity as well as re-negotiation of existing site leases/terms. Additionally, this position is responsible for ensuring the preparation of well-considered investment proposals in conjunction with the operations and property functions, for approval at the Group’s Capex Committee. As investments are made, this position will ensure rigorous tracking of the results of such investments. This critical activity will ensure assessment of results versus expectations, rapid learning of what is working and what is not, and visibility of true return on capital and IRR.
• Business Reporting & Performance Monitoring: The VP of Finance is responsible for consistent FP&A reporting and ways of working to assess and optimize performance, working to deliver performance reports on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis as a key ‘routine’ responsibility. These need to be accurate and provide meaningful insights into the absolute, relative and trend line performance of the business. These have been designed not just to ‘record’ narrow financial parameters as outputs, but are set up to enable managers to understand their key performance areas and take better performance related decisions.
• Shared Services: The VP of Finance will have full support from the business’ shared services function located in the UK.

The Ideal Candidate:

We are looking for an outstanding finance professional – self-starting, able to hit the ground running and highly collaborative. The successful candidate must be able to quickly create strong relationships and settle the team at a time of change, understand how to lead, develop and retain a highly capable finance function.

The VP of Finance will not be a statesman, concerned with status, delegation or empire building. This is a sleeves rolled up, energetic and hard working individual who is prepared to lean in to get the job done. A “finisher” who is excited by the opportunity to make a difference, contributing to (and learning from) a dynamic and experienced team. S/he will be highly capable and keen to excel alongside this fast paced and dynamic business.

• Degree educated from a strong institution – clear evidence of intellectual capacity
• An experienced finance professional, ideally as a Finance Director / VP of Finance or been very close to this role and demonstrably ready to take the next step
• An individual with the experience to “know what good looks like”. Capable of (and ideally experience of) running a quality finance function across commercial, technical, control and governance disciplines
• Proven commercial acumen and experience of driving performance through data driven decision making
• Experience in multi-site retail, leisure or other business with a substantial property portfolio.
• Ideally, experience of a membership and/or subscription-based business environment.
• Good reputation for integrity and impact.
• Able to operate in a fast-paced environment and comfortable with a degree of ambiguity, uncertainty and able to manage and support others through periods of change.